Datasets:

euclaise

/

reddit-instruct-curated

like 15

When staring into complete darkness do your eyes focus on infinity or are they unfocused?

Optometrist here. In complete darkness the eyes almost fully relax their focus (accommodation). Some amount remains, known as tonic accommodation, which varies from person to person. This is inherent to the person's visual system and present unless they are dead! Note that focussing on infinity and fully relaxing the focus are, in terms of accommodation, the same thing. Accommodation is the system by which the eyes move their focal point closer to the body e.g. to read. At optical infinity no accommodation is required and the system is, in theory at least, fully relaxed. Is this the type of focus you meant? Vergence is the system by which the eyes move closer together to point at a near object. This works a bit differently, though the two, along with pupil dilation, are linked in terms of the nerve supply.

If we can already make hydrogen fuel cells that produce water as waste, would that have the potential to solve a future crisis over lack of fresh water?

There are a number of ways in which energy can be used to produce fresh water (desalinization, for one example). Whether or not this can solve a future fresh water crisis depends on whether or not we have enough available energy.

CMV: as a parent it is your responsibility to care for your child to the best of your ability even after they turn 18

When you make the choice to become a parent, you are choosing to take on responsibility for another human being in perpetuity. That child did not choose to be born, you chose to have them and as such you owe them your care to the best of your ability. You have to feed them, house them, clothe them, not just until they’re 18 but until you have done what you can to adequately prepare them to take care of themselves and you cannot and should not make them feel guilty for that. Kicking your child out at 18 because “they’re an adult” is wrong. Turning 18 doesn’t magically make you responsible enough to care for yourself. I also think you have an obligation to educate them to the best of your ability. If you can afford to send your child to college, you should be paying for it. College helps prepare kids to be self sufficient and independent and as a parent it’s your duty to help your kids become those things. Obviously people have different financial situations and not all parents can provide the exact same support to their kids as others might be able to, but to the best of your ability you owe your kids support, financial, emotional, physical, etc. Also quite frankly, it’s normally parents who do have the financial means to support their kids that are the most stingy. They’ll say they want to teach their kids to work hard, but are making life for them unnecessarily difficult. This is especially true of rich parents who deny financial support for things like college, but because of their financial means are disqualifying their kids for aid they’d qualify for if they were on their own. Now if you have done everything within your power to prepare your child to support themselves and they are still expecting a hand out that is one thing, but otherwise, you chose to have a child, you need to take care of them.

>You have to feed them, house them, clothe them, not just until they’re 18 but until you have done what you can to adequately prepare them to take care of themselves A good parent will have adequately prepared their child to take care of themselves by the time they turn 18 and graduate from high school. So long as they've done so, then by your own logic the parents don't have to continue taking care of the kid beyond 18.

Why do commercial aircraft fly against the jet stream?

I've noticed (in the USA) that flying from west to east is significantly faster than flying from east to west. This is because of the jet stream. For instance, flying from Philly to Denver will take about 4 hours and the aircraft will manage a ground speed of about 440mph at 36,000 feet. From denver to philly takes about 3 hours, the aircraft will average a ground speed of about 550mph. I've also noticed that if the aircraft stays down around 27,000 feet, it can stay out of the Jet stream (or be in a slower part). So why don't planes heading west fly lower to stay out of the jet, save fuel and time?

Many of them do depending on the air streams for that particular flight. However weather and other air traffic will dictate the altitude and course that particular aircraft takes. For instance an aircraft heading west might be scheduled for 27,000 feet but half way through its journey there may be a storm that would create some considerable turbulence. To avoid the turbulence or "chop" said aircraft may climb several thousand feet to get above the rough air. Airlines have spent decades studying and planning the fastest/most fuel efficent routes for their aircraft to take. This helps them since their motto lately seems to be "fuel costs money"

ELI5: How exactly does the brain store information?

Information and stimuli comes into your brain trough your senses: smell, sounds, vision, etc. Most of this if filtered before you even realise it. The relevant stimuli then comes into the working memory, which contains information you are using right now (like when you are calculating, the numbers are in your working memory) and is fairly limited. You can only hold 4-7 'chuncks' of information in there. When the information is repeated or you pay more attention to it, it will go to the short term memory. For example, you repeated a phone number a few times, so you can put it in your phone. Most of this information is discarted, but some will go to the long term memory. This is mostly information you pay attention to and repeat often, which is important to you or which you relate to stuff you already know. That is why, for example, you remember a name of a person better if you relate it to a fact you are familiar with. How we store it, we don't know. Some say pictures, some say words, some say something abstract, certain nerve patterns, to name a few.

CMV: The 1950s were not even close to being a "Golden Age" of America

I hear many people talk about the 50s as some glorious era in US history but if you look even slightly beneath the surface that's just not true. If we measure aspects of well-being like health, access to commodities, wealth, safety, peace, and equity, there's no comparison. People remember it fondly because there was no longer a World War but compared to what we've seen since the 1950s, now is just so much better in essentially every category of life even through the darkest shade of rose tinted glasses **In terms of health:** \- There was 218,000 total cases of Polio throughout the 1950s; there's been zero for the past 50 years (this led to many people being disabled long-term in an era with limited accommodations) \- There was around 500,000 cases of Measles per year in USA throughout the 1950s compared to less than 100 today \- Infant mortality was 30 per every 1k births compared to 6 per 1k births today \- Life Expectancy was 69 years in the 1950s compared to 79 years today \- The advancements in medical technology alone would disqualify the 1950s as a golden age **In terms of commodities:** \- There was no internet and cell phones which means a lot of lucrative industries today would not exist, hence most of our jobs/businesses would not either. \- We have more access to bulks of information than scholars did in the 1950s due to internet, and with cell phones, we have a more sophisticated way of communicating than world leaders did in the 50s \- Food was very bland. The food we eat today is so much better and we get a lot more diversity/options because now they can come from all over the world if we don't produce them \- Less than 3/4ths of homes had electricity in the 1950s whereas now it's universal \- About 20% of homes didn't have indoor plumbing yet whereas now it's universal \- Only 50% of homes in America had running water in the early 1950s \- Things like dish washers, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, stoves, and washing machines were either all luxury items or not invented yet \- "Lower-end" cars today function wayyy better than the best cars did in the 1950s \- Commercial airlines didn't start until 1953 and were not widely used until the 1970s (it took like 15 hours with 12 stop points to get from Boston to Los Angeles in 1950) - also, most of the world was unstable at the time so international travel isn't what it is today \- In terms of wealth, Americans are on average, about 16x richer now than they were 60 years ago **In terms of safety/peace:** \- Homes in the US built during the 50s included bomb shelters because everyone was so convinced the USSR was going to attack America at any moment \- 37k American lives were lost in the Korean War which lasted 3 years compared to 6k in Iraq and Afghanistan combined over the course of 20 years \- In the 1950s, we were about 7x more likely to die in a vehicle accident \- In the 1950s, pedestrians were 5x more likely to be killed by a vehicle \- In the 1950s, we were 20-25x more likely to die on the job \- Lead poisoning is down significantly after leaded gasoline was banned in the 90s; emissions of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and lead as a whole is down by like 90% since the 1950s \- Smoke was literally everywhere because everyone over age 12 was never seen without a cigarette **In terms of discrimination:** \- Being gay was illegal \- There was still racial segregation for African Americans \- Immigration was certainly not widely accepted yet \- Women couldn't own credit cards and domestic violence was regularly brushed off

People tend to decide how well they’re doing based on relative gains. They check and see how well they’re doing compared to other people and compared to how well they were doing before. The 50s were a good time for relative gains. People were very upwardly mobile, income inequality was going down, and women and minorities were making huge strides towards equality. I’d also point out that you seem to already be judging the 1950s relatively — based on what life is like now. But this isn’t how people in the 1950s were evaluating life. And here in 2022, we’re not judging life based on how much better and more enlightened life will be in the future. Judging that way is impossible because we can’t see the future, and if we could it’s likely no point in history would be considered good except whatever period would be considered the apex.

How are some bacteria able to survive in the upper troposphere?

I read in this [article](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/01/microbes-survive-and-maybe-thrive-high-atmosphere) that some bacteria can survive for weeks at an altitude of about 10 km. How can they withstand the low pressure and cold for extended periods of time? And how are they able to quickly readjust to sea level conditions once they land?

Many organisms can survive extremely harsh conditions. Basically, their metabolism slows down and they go into a type of stasis. In fact, in the lab, we frequently store bacteria like e. coli at -80 degrees celsius for long term storage. Take the bacteria out, let them warm up, and they divide just fine. Even some animals can survive treatments like this. The roundworm, c. elegans can be frozen and tardigrades can famously survive in the vacuum of space! Note that surviving is different than growing. They slow down all processes so they aren't using energy. Some cells have mechanisms to store proteins/other molecules for release when conditions become better.

ELI5: How are cosmetics and skincare products tested for safety if they don't use animal testing?

Do they just use humans which are taking a risk? Even if theoretically something is safe and effective, you need to actually test it to verify.

Almost all chemicals used in cosmetics have been extensively tested over the last 60 years or so. However, even when a company explicitly states they do not use animal testing on products, that does not necessarily mean they do not use chemicals that the provider at some point in the past (or present) did not test on animals at some point. And yes, most cosmetics are tested on human volunteers; most actively state that they have tested under dermatological support, or have in-vitro results on human cells.

ELI5: How scientists know how far away things in space are. Ex stars, planets

There are a few methods that we use to find out how far away things are in space. The first is called parallax. Basically, we take a picture of the object in the sky. We wait for awhile, and do it again. We can then measure the difference in the angle of where we see the object, as compared to things that don't appear to have moved at all (because they are very, very far away). Because we know about Earth's orbit very well, we can use this angle to come up with a distance. In fact, you may have heard of a "parsec." This is short for "parallax second." It is the distance that something has to be from earth to have a parallax angle of 1 second (1/3600 of a degree). But, what if something is so far away that we can't measure the angle using the method? Well, then we usually use what are called "standard candles." These are stars or other objects that we know a decent amount about, and can then use how bright they are to estimate the distance, as a star's intensity fades with distance in a predictable way. A certain type of supernova is fantastic for using this, but supernovae are rare.

Will being near a large particle accelerator such as the LHC cause a magnetic compass to drift from true north?

If I am walking near the LHC on the surface how close would I have to be for my magnetic compass to drift an appreciable amount due to the strong magnetic field?

Accelerator facilities often use strong magnets to steer and focus their particle beams. These magnets will in general have fringe fields when they're turned on and ramped up to a significant current. If you come within the range of the fringe field, you will see magnetic effects such as deflection of compasses, distortion of CRT screens or other electronics, erasure of credit card strips, etc. You shouldn't be near them if you have a pacemaker. The magnets used in these facilities are mostly dipoles and quadrupoles, so their fields drop off as 1/(distance)^(3) and 1/(distance)^(4) respectively. Often they'll have some magnetic shielding around them or additional coils to minimize fringe fields, so the ranges will probably be even shorter in practice. In other words you need to be pretty close to the magnet for these things to happen.

Why is it that light slows down when moving through a substance such as air or water when light doesn't have any mass?

In classical theory, the "stiffness" of the medium changes. Consider a string. When plucked, a wave will be seen to travel - the speed of which depends on the tension. In quantum theory, photons are absorbed and re-emitted. The rate of collisions and interactions governs the transmission speed through the medium. That rate is controlled by the electron density and other things. Classical treatments which consider the electron density to define a "stiffness" of the space in a medium (or vaccuum) - the permittivity - are best and most versatile for many calculations of these things. Edit: The vacuum having no electron density still has a value for the permittivity. In the presence of electrons which act to slow light down, the new permittivity is defined relative to the vacuum value.

[Doctor Who] What would it take to make the Doctor just give up and leave?

Are there any circumstances in which the Doctor would emerge from the TARDIS, take a good look at the evil and tyranny that was going on, and then just get back in the TARDIS and go find something else to mess with? Any situation in which he'd say: "Well, this mess is clearly an internal matter, and cannot be fixed by outside interference. I must leave them to sort it out, regardless of how many people die along the way." Any situation in which he'd say: "This is too horrifying to confront. I'm going to run away and hide."

The Doctor has a history of sometimes letting some situations play out without his interference, usually because there is something to gain in doing so. He didn't stop WWII, for instance, because the lessons involved in it's resolution would be important to Humanity in the future. He also didn't stop Pompeii, and only interfered with the loss of the first Martian Colony after having a bit of a mental lapse. So, he does sometimes step back and say "Nope, they gotta sort this one out themselves". As for the second point... He literally laughed in the face of the immortal, Universe transcending personification of Evil, and regularly butts head with Great Old Ones. No, i don't think there's anything that would make him run and hide, at least not indefinitely. To buy time to come up with a plan? Sure, he does that all the time.

Would wires made of anti-matter have the same electrical properties?

Would the right hand rule still apply or would it be the left hand rule? Would electricity be propagated with positrons and would this change how the magnetic fields would be generated? Is it the same, but opposite or the same in general?

All the same rules and formulas would still apply; with the definitions we use, a current going in a given direction can be the flow of positive charges in that same direction, or a flow of negative charges in the opposite direction. Or both! Magnetic fields are the same for the flow of a positively charged antiparticle (like a positron) as for a positively charged particle (like a proton). But, like you suggested, in an antimatter wire the moving charge carriers would be the positively-charged positrons, with the anti-nucleons forming the fixed "lattice" of the solid wire. Slight aside: there are a variety of sign and handedness conventions baked in to our laws of E&M. The sign of charges, the direction of current, the direction of magnetic field, and whether to use the left or right hand rule are some of those. The choices that we use are largely due to choices made by people muddling in the dark trying to figure things out as they went along (like Ben Franklin assigning positive and negative charge). The physical observables of course don't care what choices for those we make, as long as we're consistent. Note that we do have experience with "antimatter currents" in the proton-antiproton and electron-positron beams at various particle accelerators. We also have experience with the flow of positive and negative charges in electrolyte solutions and plasmas. We of course don't have experience building solid antimatter wires; connecting those to our instruments (or even suspending them magically in a pretty good vacuum) would be... a bit too exciting.

Are cancers always fatal when left untreated?

Depends on the cancer's ability to metastasize. One can live for many years with small carcinomas in thyroid nodules that don't really do anything much, for example. And many people are diagnosed with latent cancer on pathology after they have died of something else. If you get to the point where you are diagnosed, though, treat your cancer or it will probably kill you.

What limitations are currently stopping us from collecting and using lightning bolts?

Is it the inability to quickly route and store the varied amount of voltage and or amperage?

Engineering difficulties aside, from a practical standpoint, a lightning bolt has energy in the range of a few megajoules to possibly a gigajoule. Even if this could be collected and used, it's about the same amount of energy that a large power plant delivers in one second, so even if it were possible, harvesting lightning wouldn't contribute very much energy to the electrical grid in the long run.

[1984] Are the countries Eurasia and Eastasia like Oceania? Better? Worse? Do they even exist?

All we know is from the propaganda BB pushes on those countries, right? I haven't read the book yet, it's on my to read list.

It's understood that Eurasia and Eastasia have governments that are functionally identical to Oceania. Oceania's Ingsoc (English Socialism), Eurasia's Neo-Bolshevism and Eastasia's Death Worship are all virtually indistinguishable from one another in practice. The fact that all three are the same is kept from the people as to maintain the constant war between the three. All three governments depend on perpetual war in order to survive, since dedicating each nation's entire industrial effort towards war production allows the population to be kept productive while never allowing general quality of life to ever improve.

[D&D] Do the civilized and semi-civilized races share a common anatomical arrangement?

Hearts left of center between two lungs, etc?

Follow up questions: * Are racial differences explained by differences in biology? Do Dwarves have redundant livers explaining their constitution? Do Elves have unique visual cortex explaining their resistance to hypnotism and illusions? * Humans ability to interbreed with Elves and Orcs suggest a common ancestry? With Elves & Drow more distant to Orcs than to humans explaining their inability to produce offspring?

ELI5: How do shells form? Why are there so many types? Why do all the curly shells curl in the same direction?

Mollusks like snails and clams have very delicate bodies, so they need protection from the elements and predators. As mollusks develop in the sea, their mantle tissue absorbs salt and chemicals. They secrete calcium carbonate, which hardens on the outside of their bodies, creating a hard shell. The shell stays attached to the mollusk but it is not actually part of its living body because it is made of minerals, not mollusk cells (unlike most animal structures). The mollusk continues to take in salt and chemicals from the sea and secrete calcium carbonate, which makes its shell grow even bigger. When a mollusk dies it discards its shell, which eventually washes up on the shore. This is how seashells end up on the beach.

Why does Schopenhauer think that the highest ethical aim is to deny the will to live?

"According to Schopenhauer, moral freedom—the highest ethical aim—is to be obtained only by a denial of the will to live." - translator's footnote in Schopenhauer's "Studies in Pessimism" I'm very confused. Is it even referring to morality, or is it referring to "ethics" as in the ancient Greek sense? Why did Schopenhauer believe this? I'm becoming a big fan of his work so far.

He was heavily influenced by Indian philosophy (particularly the Upanishads) and his views on this subject are closely related to Hindu and Buddhist thought (I would guess he likely drew much of this line of thought directly from those sources, then used his own manner of explanation). In Buddhism you have "tanha" the "thirst for life" and in Hinduism "kama" or desire plays into the same idea. The heart of Krishna's teachings (Bhagavad Gita) is what some have termed "actionless action" or "disinterested action", that is to say one ought to live without desiring anything from the results of your actions (only the act rightly belongs to the sage, not the results of the act, as Krishna explains). Indian texts bring forward the same essential moral conclusions from these as Schopenhauer. So, the main connection between the "will to live" and moral freedom is that thirst for life influences our actions (in the most basic sense, we avoid pain and seek pleasure), and this interferes with our morality because the right thing to do might cause us pain or reduce our pleasure. Having a thirst for life (or will to live) and desiring pleasure / avoiding pain becomes a non moral factor in our decision making and provides a (at least potential) counter force to moral choice. To have absolute moral freedom would require that one not have this factor present in decision making so that one is capable of approaching any given situation with a *purely* moral consideration.

ELI5: What happens if an animal who is supposed to hibernate is unable to?

What happens if an animal who is supposed to hibernate during the winter is unable to because of health reasons or even environmental factors (i.e. home being destroyed by forest fire or being snatched out of environment by poachers)? Does its body wear down and fall into a deep sleep regardless of the severe circumstances? Does the animal eventually get over the need to hibernate after pushing through the normal sleep cycle? Does the animal risk death if it doesn't hibernate?

A particular example: brown bears. If the bear doesn't get enough chow to get fat before hibernation, it's likely to wake up in the middle of the winter and go about looking for anything to eat. What you get is a шатун, a "rocker", which is willing to kill anything that gets in its way (including armed humans), and is likely to starve to death before spring anyway.

ELI5: Why does distilled water not work in a keurig machine?

Coffee makers rely on boiling water to pump the water by gravity. Basically, a column of boiling water containing bubbles is lighter than solid water, so the water in the column can go higher than the water level. This allows it to act like a fountain. In order for the pumping effect to work properly, there has to be smooth, even boiling. A problem can occur with very pure liquids and very clean surfaces. Bubbles tend to form more easily on impurities. In pure water, it is difficult for bubbles to form. This allows the water to become superheated (heated to more than the boiling point but without boiling). When a bubble suddenly does form, you can get a chain reaction where bubbles start forming on bubbles, leading to a sudden explosion of boiling which can spray water everywhere. This sudden and erratic boiling is called "bumping". It doesn't always happen, but it can happen and be a problem, so it's best avoided as far as practical. By using tap water, it is much less likely that you get this "bumping" and instead get smooth boiling which causes a smooth supply of water to the coffee. It's the same reason why distilled water is not recommended for use in clothes irons. You want a steady supply of steam. Bumping boiling risks sudden spurts. The minerals in tap water help stop this happening.

ELI5 Why are different sections of the Ocean labeled as "Seas". For example, the Bearing Sea, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, ect.

I understand the Mediterranean Sea and Black Seas as they are separate bodies of water. Most of the rest just don't make sense.

Naming conventions for almost everything in nature is arbitrary, and the names of those seas in particular may be due to limited perspective. These bodies of water would have been named long before the technology needed to map them accurately would have been invented, and the names just stuck. Take, for example, the Bering Sea in the northern Pacific. Outside of the islands that dot its southern edge, there is no clear divide between it and the Pacific that can be discerned from the coastlines. With satellite imagery we could easily find one, such as through tectonic mapping, but in the end the Bering Sea was give its name largely arbitrarily.

ELI5: What's the difference between "quality" gasoline and "cheap" gasoline?

Everyone talks about "quality" gas like Chevron or whatever and knocks "bad" gas like Arco. What's the difference? Is it worth it? Why?

The difference is the additives in the gas. For example, Shell sells nitrogen enriched gas that they claim helps eliminate deposits in the engine. They advertise heavily by saying that their gas is fundamentally better. Independent tests have shown that there is no difference in emissions, fuel economy, or performance. There might have been a difference 30-40 years ago, but all gas has to meet strict government standards. Once gas has met those standards, there isn't much more you can do to improve it. So the difference is mainly advertising dollars.

ELI5: Drinking glasses - why we use certain shapes for certain drinks. Why not drink red wine out of a whiskey tumbler? Does the thickness/quality of the glass matter?

For wine glasses, they are very shallow and wide at how deep you pour wine as to increase surface, allowing the wine to "breathe", i.e. react with oxygen to improve the taste. For whiskey, there are so-called "nosing glasses" which have a round bottom part and a relatively slim upper part; this allows the whiskey to evaporate and be sniffed at a concentrated intensity. These are for enjoying good whiskeys; tumblers are for a more everyday usage. I don't think thickness and quality of the glass matters.

ELI5: What keeps water from getting in, or collecting in, our lungs during heavy fog or mist?

>What keeps water from getting in, or collecting in, our lungs during heavy fog or mist? Nothing. Water does get in. It coats the entire surface of the lungs. However, lungs are always coated with moisture, so it's no big deal. The moisture traps dirt and dust. The surface of the lungs is covered with tiny hair-like structures called cilia. The cilia move in waves and sweep excess moisture, dust, dirt, and foreign contaminants out of the lungs. It all gets swept up into the throat to be swallowed and digested.

How are we able to store data in diamonds?

In reference to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/5a4u4w/its_well_known_that_diamonds_are_extremely/ This is not the first time I've read about this but I never looked into it. What is the scientific logic behind being able to store data in diamonds?

Basically it comes down to the stability of localised "defects" which can be placed in structures like diamond. The technique used in the link you suggest used nitrogen vacancy centres, these are formed when a carbon is replaced with a nitrogen. Nitrogen atoms have an extra electron which instead of forming a covalent bond, just exist as a pair localised to the nitrogen atom. These vacancy centres actually absorb light as visible frequencies, and so can be "read" out with a laser. If you can control where you put them in the diamond, then you store a position which is essentially data.

Why are prices of goods lower on Black Friday, when demand for Christmas gifts begins to surge, than After Christmas (Boxing Day), when demand sharply declines?

The surge in demand around Black Friday is well anticipated by stores, who preemptively increase their supply in order to capitalize on the increased demand. This helps keep prices from increasing for most things as the supply rises to meet the demand, but creates increased pressure for the stores to attract that increased demand to their products specifically, resulting in the numerous sales, as well as tactics like loss leaders (steeply, often unprofitably, discounted items meant to get people in the door where they will then buy other, more profitably priced merchandise at the same time), or more cheaply made versions of expensive items like TVs that can be sold at a discounted price without cutting into profits. Likewise, stores aren’t ordering extra stock to replenish what is sold during the holiday season for the post holiday, because they know ahead of time that demand is going to drop off sharply. Increased and decreases in demand tend to raise or lower prices as supply tries to catch up to the change in demand. Since the demand changes are predictable, suppliers can anticipate those changes and plan accordingly, which somewhat or entirely negates the effect of the change in demand on price. That said, it should be noted that unexpectedly hot items during Black Friday will often fly off the shelves very quickly and then see a spike in prices on resale sites, while stores that fail to sell off their excess stock during the holiday season may be left in a position that they need to steeply discount their supply to get rid of it in the post-holiday, so in that sense the changes in demand still do have their intuitive impact on pricing. For the most part, good planning prevents this from being too much of an issue as retailers attempt to capture the increased demand, though.

Who are some significant "pantheist" philosophers other than Spinoza who believed essentially that 'matter/energy' and 'spirit' are the same phenomena/completely identical, thus implying that the universe was not created by an eternal being, but is in fact an eternal being?

Spinoza thinks that matter and mind are two different attributes of substance, which is a neutral monist position and at odds with the idea that they are "the same phenomena/completely identical." What it suggests is that matter and mind are two different expressions of, or two different ways of conceiving a single underlying substance. Accordingly, they have a kind of unity to them, insofar as they are both expressions of the same substance, and this has theoretical consequences, notably in the notion of a strict parallelism between mental events and material events. But mind and matter also have an irreducible diversity in Spinoza's philosophy, since while they are about the same substance, they are nonetheless still fundamentally different in their expression of it. This too has consequences, namely the mutually irreducibility of mind and matter, and the strict independence of the causal history of each. But none of this really has anything obvious to do with whether the universe was created by an eternal being or whether the universe is in fact an eternal being. Spinoza's account of the relation between God and nature is, *for a large part*, fairly traditional: he understands God to be an infinite, eternal, immutable, self-caused, omnipotent and maximally free substance whose creative activity produces nature, and he distinguishes being regarded as this infinite substance, which he calls "naturing nature" (in the sense of nature that is enacting the process of naturing), from being regarded as the product of the creative activity of this substance, which he calls "natured nature" (in the sense of nature that results from the process of naturing). So far this is pretty typical stuff for the tradition of metaphysics which runs from ancient philosophy to the rationalists. Where Spinoza departs from the orthodox Christian understanding of this metaphysical picture is with two related points. First, he thinks that God's omnipotence and freedom only make sense if it's recognized that God's creation of everything he *could* create necessarily follows from them. That is, he thinks that if God would ever *not* create something, that there must be something which held him back from doing so, but in that case he wouldn't be omnipotent and maximally free, so that God's omnipotence and maximal freedom, somewhat ironically, render the creative act a metaphysical necessity. Traditional theology had often wanted to identify a point of contingency here, to imagine that God could have chosen to create or not, and accordingly to understand creation as a contingent and freely willed event. For Spinoza, conversely, creation follows necessarily from God's nature. The second radical point of Spinoza's philosophy follows from this. Just as the traditional theological picture tended to conceive the creative act as contingent, it also tended to conceive of *its object* as contingent. That is, God could freely choose to create or not to create, and he could also freely choose to create one possible universe rather than some other one. Spinoza, conversely, argues that God's omnipotence and freedom only make sense if his creative activity is expressed without limitation. That means not only that the creative act necessarily follows from God's nature, it also means that God, as it were, *doesn't hold himself back* so as to make one particular sort of universe (i.e. typically, in the theological picture, one particularly kind to human beings) but rather just limitlessly creates an infinite diversity of everything that can be created. Spinoza, then, might be called a pantheist because in his philosophy (i) God and creation are not separated by a notional point of contingency, but rather are more closely connected, through the *necessity* of the creative act, than in the orthodox theological picture, and (ii) there is similarly no notional space between the various possible universes and the one God chose (providentially) to create, but rather creation expresses God's infinite nature in its own limitlessness--limited not even by a providential design. In these two ways, Spinoza's God is, as it were, *closer* to creation than in the orthodox picture. Whether this means that "the universe was not created by an eternal being" is not clear. The universe is, straight-forwardly, certainly created by an eternal being in Spinoza's philosophy. But this creation is a necessary rather than contingent act, which might reasonably be regarded as an important difference from the traditional theological accounts of creation. Similarly, is the universe "in fact an eternal being" for Spinoza? Certainly, insofar as there is only one being (God), this being is eternal, and the universe is its expression. But so far as this goes, it's not significantly different from the traditional theological and metaphysical picture. What is different about Spinoza's universe is its necessary connection to God and its infinite nature rather than providential design. The difference between Spinoza's "pantheism" and traditional "theism" is thus less straight-forward, and certainly of a different nature, than is popularly supposed. As to what other philosophers present a metaphysical picture similar to Spinoza's on these points, as suggested above, the framework of his system is fairly traditional. The ways I've noted above in which he departs from the traditional system are not entirely original to him, but can be found raised in medieval debates and still further back in the context of ancient philosophy. Spinoza's own emphasis on God's freedom and omnipotence over notions of contingency and providential design are themselves claims that had already been developed in the context of Reformation critiques of Catholic theology, and Spinoza may have inherited them from this tradition of Christian thought through his contact with the Collegiants. One can thus go back through the history of traditional metaphysics that stretches from the ancient Greeks to the early modern rationalists and find much in various sources that is sympathetic with Spinoza. Eriugena often received the pantheist characterization, as did the Latin Averroists, and various Renaissance philosophers of nature, e.g. Bruno. Going back to the Greeks, the pantheism characterization is leveled rather extensively: certainly at the Platonists, Stoics, and at least some of the pre-Socratics. Of the rationalism which flourished in the early modern period, Spinoza's is particularly noteworthy for the points mentioned above, which are suggestive of the pantheist characterization he often receives, while Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz tended to argue the more orthodox line which recognized a greater distinction between God and creation, especially permitting a notion of providential design. After this rationalist period, the general project of traditional metaphysics in which thinking like this--pantheist or not--occurred largely fell out of favor and was replaced first by empiricism and then by various reactions to it. In this later period, one may wish to look particularly at Schopenhauer, who also often receives the pantheist label, and belongs to the general context of German idealism and romanticism where an interest in rationalist metaphysics and especially in Spinoza was briefly revived.

How did Marcus Aurelius’s Stoic philosophy reconcile his “living in the moment is the correct way of life” beliefs with the inherent necessity of looking to the future to be a good emperor?

In Book 3 of the Meditations he reiterates how a good man does not want to control his future and how one should strive to accept one’s daily life’s happenings yet he as an expansionist emperor must have had a vision and plan for the future of Rome, else he’d feel all he’s doing is for nought which his philosophy rejects.

Stoic philosophy is about virtue ethics in the here and now. It places strong emphasis on playing the cards you have been dealt (the Romans didn't have cards, but Epictetus does use the equivalent example of a dice game at one point). So it doesn't exactly require a vision and plan for the future. The main thing to bear in mind is that Marcus's reign had terrible waves of epidemic disease as well as troublesome border wars on the Danube. The _Meditations_ were written quite late in his life, the Antonine plaque had killed countless people including his co-emperor Verus, and probably killed many of Marcus' own children (Marcus lost maybe eight or nine children). So it's not a document about grand plans for the future, it's about him trying to make sense of the present, but from a certain Stoic cosmic point of view.

ELI5: What seems to be the best method for raising a dog?

I don't think negative reinforcement is the answer. How do I raise a good dog?

To raise a dog the right way you should place both arms underneath the animal and lift whilst keeping your back straight and shoulders level. Face the same direction as your hips. Always bend your legs instead of the trunk to reduce stress on the spine.

Is there a term in Economics for something which has an east to measure cost but difficult to measure benefit?

EDIT: Always spot typos after submitting, I mean "easy to measure cost" This seems like something there would be a term for. An example would be someone who is employed purely in a support role, their cost can be easily measured in terms of their salary but it difficult to quantify how much indirect benefit they provide. I've heard this kind of role described as overhead but that doesn't seem to cover the ease or otherwise of measuring benefit.

For nearly everything it's easier to measure the cost than the benefit. Consider the adage "the value is not the price" as critical. It's incredibly important in questions like this to be as deliberate and clear as possible in your word choices. Benefit is broad and ambiguous. If you are discussing this in the context of a firm, you most likely did not mean benefits, but rather revenues. Revenues are a specific form of benefit and are distinctly more measurable than teamwork, watercooler jokes, and morning doughnuts. The field of transfer pricing analysis studies the contributions to revenues along the supply chain.

ELI5: This Bitcoin mining thing again.

Every post I saw explained Bitcoin mining simply by saying "computers do math (hurr durr)". Can someone please give me a concrete example of such a mathematical problem? If this has been answered somewhere else and I didn't find it (and I tried hard!), please feel free to just post a link to that comment. Thank you :)

It looks like there's still a bit of misinformation here, so I'll try to clear it up. **The Big Picture** Mining increases the bitcoin network's security and fights fraud by calculating what's effectively a checksum for transactions. By contributing their computing power to the bitcoin network for mining, individuals are rewarded with newly minted bitcoins by the community. This also provides a way to distribute new bitcoins in a fair manner. **The Details** Hash functions are at the heart of mining. A hash function is basically a complicated math formula that takes in some arbitrary input and gives a reproducible output. However, changing the input even slightly will completely alter the output. For example, using the SHA-256 hash function: SHA-256 of "Test" always outputs a hash of "532eaabd9574880dbf76b9b8cc00832c20a6ec113d682299550d7a6e0f345e25" SHA-256 of "test" (lowercase t) is "9f86d081884c7d659a2feaa0c55ad015a3bf4f1b2b0b822cd15d6c15b0f00a08" Now, let's say Alice decides to pay Bob 10BTC. The bitcoin network basically records that in the public ledger of transactions as "Alice -> 10 -> Bob". However, right now someone could change that 10 to a 20 without consequence. The network has to have some way of checking if the recorded transaction is valid or fraudulent. That's where mining comes in. When Alice pays Bob those 10BTC, miners in the bitcoin network will try to hash the transaction "Alice -> 10 -> Bob", resulting in "aa314e08a642f5be3857276ecb4a4085a33b916f84aebef32a077df9c29949b3". However, mining has a requirement that the resulting hash must start with a certain number of 0's (depending on the network's hash speed). Thus, miners will slightly alter the transaction by adding a random number to the end like so: "Alice -> 10 -> Bob 12345". The miners will then hash it again and see if it has the required number of 0's. If not, it'll change the random number and hash it again. This is repeated until an acceptable hash is found. Once the correct hash is found, the transaction and the hash are permanently stored in the public ledger of transactions, and if anyone tries to change the transaction (i.e. changing the 10 to a 20), the hash will naturally mismatch and the network will know that that transaction is fake and will reject it. The miner who calculated the correct hash is rewarded a certain number of newly minted bitcoins and transaction fees for his contributions to the security of the network. Thus, "bitcoin mining" is actually a slight misnomer. Its other equally important purpose is "bitcoin transaction securing." Hope that answered some questions! Edit: Thanks for the Gold! \^_^ Edit: mappum clarifies a few intricate details below.

What does Sartre mean when he states that 'In fashioning myself I fashion man'?

Sartre's theory that existentialism is a humanism includes the idea that our actions account for actions of all mankind. He says 'I am thus responsible for myself and for all men' I understood this to be an extension of Kant's categorical imperative whereby one's actions are only morally acceptable if they can be acted by everyone and not cause a problem. 'act in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal laws for a merely possible kingdom of ends'. Am I miss-understanding what Sartre meant?

Not really mis-understanding, though he's exploring something a little bit different from Kant. Sartre is saying that the actions you choose are ultimately the actions you believe anyone ought to choose, and that in this way all of your choices reflect your ideal of a person. You are creating your own ideal of a person in yourself, through your actions.

ELI5: What does it mean when people say that an industry is worth $XXX?

For example when people say that the electric car industry will be worth 1 trillion. Does that mean that all the goods sold added together are worth that much combined?

Let's say you are in 4th grade and sell candy bars. If you have 20 classmates and half of them like candy, your total market is 10 kids. Now, you sell each bar for $1 and there's 10 potential clients. Your market is $10. Your friends like candy so much that they buy two bars per day, so $10 x 2 = $20. This is what you are selling daily: $20. Now, there's about 180 school days per year, so your market is $20 x 180 = $3600. Your local market is worth $3600 yearly. You have to realize that there are 87.500 elementary schools in the US, and that there are kids selling candy bars in every 4th grade, so. 87.500 x $3600/yr = $315M $315M is the total market value for the 4th grade candy bar industry. Now, there are several markets per industry. Here we are assuming that there is only one product in this industry. Most industries are more complicated, have several competitors and have more products. Now you can repeat this process for the electric car industry. With some sophisticated analysis you can know how many people are currently willing to buy one, and can forecast the future trends regarding prices and willingness to buy. Like so, you can estimate how much an industry will be worth.

CMV: You have no basis to tell others what to do based on religious beliefs if they do not hold the same beliefs.

I hold the view proposed in the title. I am open to examining it because I see many instances in history and today of people giving behavioural prescriptions based on religious beliefs to others who do not hold the same beliefs. A religious belief is an example of a belief obtained through faith only. This means that spiritually and aesthetically, you find a proposition somehow worthy, and therefore want to believe it is true. At the same time, there may be no evidence for the proposition, but this doesn't matter for the purposes of faith-based belief. This is more relevant today than in the past, when people attempted to prove the existence of God with logic and find empirical evidence, whereas today it seems that most people think faith means believing based on the value they see in the proposition, not any evidence. Most of the core beliefs of a religion fit this description, such as God exists, he is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, etc. Many practices and codes of behaviour are derived from the core beliefs. A religion mandating vegetarianism says: if and only if \[some core belief\], then one must be vegetarian. A religion says: if and only if A, then B. Let's take the example of abortion. Some religions assert that life is a gift from God, and that you ought not to take it away. The proposition "one must undergo abortion" follows directly from the assertions. The assertions are believed based on faith, not evidence. If one were to command another to not undergo abortion, and they both believed the same body of faith-based assertions, that would be completely fine. But when one commands another, and the other does not believe those faith-based assertions, that's when problems arise. Given a certain faith-based assertion, one can choose to believe it or not, and either choice is equally valid. The belief is based on subjective tastes. However, given an evidence-based assertion, one of the choices is more valid depending on how strong the evidence is. For some evidence-based assertions, the evidence is so strong that one choice is absolutely valid. These evidence-based assertions apply to people of all belief systems, so one can always tell another that they ought to do something if that ought is based on evidence. Contrarily, if the ought does not follow from evidence-based assertions, it is incorrect to command another. It is incorrect to say that one religion is more valid than another.

To what extent does anyone have the right to enforce their moral values, secular or religious, over anyone else? Morality, secular or religious, is inherently subjective. Right and wrong don't have any basis in reality - many people relate right and wrong to good and bad, or pleasure and suffering, but not everyone, and there is no moral system or single value that everyone will agree with. Not everyone believes in the same values you do - can you enforce your values on them? So either nobody has the right to enforce their moral beliefs (say murder is wrong, for an admittedly hyperbolic example) on another, or religiously founded morals are just as legitimate to be enforced on others as secular ones.

Why does a reactor meltdown, such as with Chernobyl, create a much longer lasting exclusion zone than a nuclear warhead detonation site?

It fundamentally comes down to quantities. A modern nuclear warhead may contain *at most* a few hundred kg of fissionable material, likely less. A typical reactor core contains **100 tonnes** (200000 kg) of enriched Uranium (and other radioactive species if the fuel assemblies have been in use for a while). There's just vastly more radioactive potential present in the reactor core.

What is the significance of the Entscheidungsproblem ("decision problem")?

As a computer science student, I have often been confronted with the [Entscheidungsproblem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entscheidungsproblem) and the work done by Alonzo Church and Alan Turing that showed no general solution to it can exist. However I never really understood the significance of this or what it really means in a practical sense. Can anyone shed some light on this topic for me and explain what the consequences of the Entscheidungsproblem are?

A very important consequence for computer science is, that it is not possible to write a sound and complete program analyzer for many problems. For example wouldn't it be cool to have a tool which finds all null-pointer-exceptions in a Java program? Thanks to the results known for the Entscheidungsproblem we know that we should not waste our time trying to write such a program analyzer as it cannot exist. Instead we should try to find approximations for the problem or restrict the Java language with a stronger type system. And when we design a new type-system we should maybe make sure that it is decidable, but some type-systems (Scala, Java?) are undecidable.

ELI5: Why does it hurt to read green text on red background and vice versa? What happens to our eyes/brain?

[Example](https://www.tarleton.edu/accessibility/images/bad-example-green-bg-red-fg.jpg)

The lens in your eye tries to focus the light on you retina but light of different wave lenght is bending differently (rainbowlike) so your eyes and brain will be confused about what color to make sharp and what to make blurry. You will get this effect with any color combination with large enough difference in wave lenght. In optometry you use a similar test to adjust correction by looking at black text on green background next to black text on red background and see shat color is clearest. Red means you need more negative glasses, green more positive.

eli5, how do "store brands" work?

Stores contract with manufacturers to make product specifically for them, usually at a cheaper rate. Some ways that they get a lower cost: sometimes the food manufacturer is not the same as the brand name one. sometimes this is cheaper. sometimes its the same, but volume agreements are negotiated leading to a cheaper price. sometimes the same, but the packaging is cheaper, or the ingredients are cheaper. usually this provides little margin for the main manufacturer, but it keeps the lights on/machine running when its very expensive for machines to be down. sometimes its whats called a 'copacker' and they usually do the packaging in place of a manufacturer actually producing it. for them, its a matter of replacing the packaging/labelling and continue producing. ive seen very little difference in product (brand v "generic") when its made by a copacker. source: i work with copackers, private labels, and brands for some of these products

If gravity causes time dilation, wouldn't deep gravity wells create their own red-shift? How do astronomers distinguish close massive objects from distant objects?

They estimate the depth of the gravity well. We sit in one ourselves so this can be taken into account as well. It doesn’t matter much. At distances where this is a large effect the random motion of galaxies is still important. At distances where you get nice measurements the redshift is so large the gravity wells don’t have a large impact any more.

ELI5: Why do some airplanes have the wing tips folded up at about 80 degrees and some planes do not?

A wing provides lift because it creates low pressure on top of the wing, and higher pressure below. As a side effect this causes the air to swirl around the tip of the wing in an effort to equalize the pressure as air on the high pressure side tries to reach the low pressure side. This is undesirable because it screws up the airflow around the end of the wing, and also creates dangerous vortexes that trail behind the aircraft. One way of minimizing this problem is by using "winglets" that serve as a fence to block the air under the wing from being able to curl around the end. This makes the wing work more efficiently and reduces those vortexes.

ELI5: What gives fire its shape?

When air is heated, it tends to expand. To explain why it expands - Heat is basically the measure of vibration and movement of the actual molecules within a substance. When something is solid, these vibrations don't have enough energy to stop the attractive forces between the molecules thus they stay mostly in place. When something is a liquid, the molecules have enough energy to repel a LITTLE bit from the attracting forces, but can at least move so they tend to slide over one another and create something that flows - A liquid. Something that is a gas has enough energy for each molecule that they have completely freed themselves from one another, and will expand to fill any container that they are in because they are basically just constantly slamming into one another as they move. This is what causes pressure because the molecules are constantly bouncing off of one another and forcing each other away, and WANT to move outward. The hotter something is, the more it wants to expand as the movement of the molecules increase. Thus the lower density it would have as it expands. This expansion lowers the density of the air that is being heated by the flame, as such it wants to rise upward because the cold air around it is more dense and forcing the hot air upward. Hot Air balloons work on this idea. So in essence what you are seeing is not the exact shape of the fire, but what the air that is moving upward forms it into. In space, fire would be much more stable in its shape and be mostly rounded as there is no gravity for hot/cold air to convect against.

What does it mean to be immune to a disease, and how do "carriers" work?

From what I understand (I might even be completely wrong?) there is bound to be at least one person on this earth immune to disease X, they could carry it and spread it - but not be affected and killed by it. How does this work? Does their immune system not care about the disease or just isolate it in the body? What happens?

There are different kinds of immunity. If the infectious disease cannot grow in the host or has been completely wiped out, then they can't be a carrier. This can happen several ways, for example: 1. The disease has been completely obliterated by the concerted effort of your immune system or through drugs. For example, if you clear a yeast infection completely, you can't give it to someone else afterwards because there's simply no yeast left. 2. Certain people are naturally immune to certain types of disease because of there genetics. For example, some people are immune to HIV because they don't have a receptor that HIV attaches to. If the virus can't enter the cells, it can't infect and be passed on. However, there are other disease that the host can contain (maybe for a little while anyway) and render asymptomatic but cannot completely clear, even with the help of drugs. These include herpes, HIV. The disease has mechanisms to avoid or suppress the immune system enough that there aren't any symptoms, but the disease can still be transmitted. Every disease has it's own way of doing though. Typhoid fever, for example, can be asymptomatic in a host, but still be tranmissible because in certain people the bacteria can "hide" from the host immune defense.

If the solubility of CO2 decreases as temperature increases, then why is global warming causing ocean acidification?

I've read that the CO2 becomes less soluble in water the hotter it gets, but I've also read that the ocean is absorbing more CO2, causing its pH to decrease. Are both of these statements true? If so, how?

For simple solutions, the relationship between the partial pressure of a gas and the concentration of it in a solvent is proportional, >p = kc This is called Henry's law. k can be a function of temperature. For CO2, k becomes smaller at higher temperatures, so at the same partial pressure, less gas can dissolve. However, the amount dissolved always increases with the amount in the air. Even though the solvency of the gas can decrease, we can still dissolve more total gas by simply pumping up the atmospheric concentration.

ELI5: How did the term "Latin" become associated the culture of Spanish descendants if the Latins were a central Italian hill tribe?

edit: Recognizing, of course, the Latin language as the basis for the Romantic languages (French, Romanian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese). As Rome expanded, did the term "Latin" follow it? If so, why was it jettisoned as a descriptor for Turkish, Italian, French, German, Greek, North African, Eastern European, Persian and Semitic peoples and not Iberian peoples?

The term Latin America was first used in the XIX century to describe the part of the Americas that spoke either Spanish, Portuguese or French. You may argue that Hispanic America or Iberian America would be better terms, but none of these terms refer to Spanish, Portuguese and French at the same time. More importantly, in the context of the fight for independence, people from the region would rather be associated with a more general heritage (the Latin civilization) instead of being associated with the countries they were fighting against (Spain and Portugal). The term Latin America, which was used initially to describe countries sharing a common linguistic family, started to be used to describe, by extension, a geographic region (that somewhat wrongly includes English and Dutch speaking countries) and later to describe the people coming from these countries. Since most people from Latin America speak Spanish (especially those who immigrate to the USA), the term Latin has been more strongly associated with the Spanish language.

How are modern transistors manufactured?

With the current generation of GPU's and CPU's being released and talked about I keep seeing terms like 14nm and 7nm being thrown around. I sort of took this as an arbitrary number for a while and didn't think about it. However when I started doing some research, I realized that 14nm's is only \~7 silicon atoms wide. With that in mind, the NVIDIA 3080 is advertised as having 10's of billions of transistors. How is it possible to manufacture these on such scale to supply demand, and without error so that the chips actually work.

Mostly due to advances in photolithography machines (e.g. ASML). The wavelength of the lasers used for patterning are being pushed lower, as this is one way to improve the resolution of printing the patterns to build up transistors and microchips. The latest machines are using 13nm Extreme Ultraviolet light. It is worth noting that nodes used by companies like Intel such as 14 nm, 10 nm etc are mostly marketing and normally don't relate to the actual critical dimensions of the chips

ELI5: Why do gasoline prices fluctuate so drastically from state to state in the US.

Different gasoline taxes. Different distances between the nearest refinery. Different blend requirements for the gasoline(California). Different requirements on who's allowed to pump gasoline into a car(Oregon/New Jersey). Different minimum wages. Different property values for a gas station sized plot of land. Different property taxes.

ELI5: Why haven't we made ski boots that don't hurt yet?

Normal shoes will adapt to your feet after a while. Ski boots shouldn't adapt, they should brace your foot. You can get the inner shoe shaped to fit your foot. it costs like $300-500. But a far cheaper thing that people don't know about is that you can take your boot to a (good) ski shop and they can stretch your off-the-shelf boot where it hurts your foot. About half an inch or so. It's usually like $30-80. It works out great for many people. Edit: but they ski boots are not as bad as they used to be, right?

CMV: Emotionally proportional punishment is just punishment

### Proposition If someone stabs, they deserve to experience the totality of the emotional and physical pain involved with getting stabbed. If someone kills someone else, they deserve to experience in excruciating, visceral detail the emotion associated with entering the void for the rest of eternity - and then the emotional pain that all the loved ones that the deceased are going through. If someone robs someone else, they deserve to experience the sense of loss - both in monetary value and emotional/physical security - that their victim experienced. (Read: the *sense* of loss in monetary value, the "oh shit I lost x% of my income" feeling - not *actual* loss. The *sense* of loss of emotional/physical security.) Ideally, in some far-future society where we could force people to experience emotion, a just form of punishment would be to first have the criminal experience all negative emotion associated with their crime, and then go through a period of rehabilitation from which they are not released until their personality has changed (this far-future society would have the capability to determine if their personality has changed enough). *Even if* we had (and were willing to use) technology capable of "redeeming" a criminal and changing their personality for the better, it is still just for them to experience the magnitude of the crime they committed. ---- ### Thoughts The reason I ask this is that the concept of proportional punishment seems to be reviled and thought of as fundamentally wrong. Let's take torture, for example: if someone tortures someone else, in my mind, it is only fair and just for the criminal to experience the same (again, only the physical/emotional pain without any permanent effects other than emotional). However, most civilized people would say this is barbaric and wrong, and I don't understand why. I can even understand barbaric, but why would it be *wrong*? To me, it seems only fair. ---- ### Major Edits * There would be a system in place to reduce or eliminate punishment for mental retardation/insanity/etc. This is more for the 'I stabbed Jimmy for 5 bucks" or "ran over a kid while drunk driving" crimes. The idea is to force people to feel and understand the magnitude of their crime. * We don't want people to suffer, so we don't enforce reciprocal punishment in the real world. We want to minimize suffering wherever possible, and let people lead happy, fulfilling lives. **My current point of view is that "minimizing suffering" ≠ "equality/fairness/justice".** I need you to convince me that either (a) this is not true, or (b) this is alright, and enforcing complete justice is a bad idea. * Someone went through my history and downvoted everything. Congrats, I guess? I would still like to CMV however, so please let this be visible so people have a chance to CMV.

The moral goal of most people is 'decrease the amount of suffering and increase that amount of happiness in the world.' Torturing people, even criminals, goes 100% against this common-sense morality. They are still humans, and you are therefore still adding to the total amount of human suffering. Human suffering is not 'bad' when it happens to 'good' people and 'good' when it happens to 'bad' people. Human suffering is just bad, full stop. 'Justice' is a funny, slippery word, which means different things to different people in different contexts. But most people would hope that it has at least *some* relationship to morality. At the very worst, justice should not be *100% anti-correlated with morality*, which the system you describe actually is (again, assuming morality = reducing human suffering, which most people believe). This is why most people would be very reluctant to call your system 'justice'. A better term might be 'balance' or 'karma' or 'symmetry' or 'equal and opposite reactions'.

CMV: I believe the term "cisgender" doesn't need to be adopted by said "cisgendered" people. I liken it to diabetics creating a word for non-diabetics other than "healthy" or "normal."

I love transgendered people, and I find this new (to me) topic interesting. But I don't think that normally gendered people need to use the term cisgender, or even know what it is. I also don't think it's wrong to refer to a cisgendered person as "normal," (edit: regarding their gender identity and not them as a whole person) rather than cisgendered. If the trans community want to have terms like this, which I obviously see the utility of, then great, call me that all you want. I just don't understand why suddenly I am not a normal male, and why it's offensive to refer to myself as a normal <gender>. I don't see why certain transsexual individuals have attacked me for simply refering to cisgender as normal, instead of this "designated male at birth" terminology I had never heard of before venturing over to /r/trans. I would compare this to anyone with an uncommon trait getting vocally offended by not being refered to by a specific terminology they feel more comfortable with. If autistic children, diabetics, people with parkinson's and paraplegics all wanted to be called something new, it would get incredibly confusing to talk to people without offending anyone. I completely understand that transsexuals have a hard life, huge suicide rate, etc., but I don't think that babying them by tiptoeing around words like "normal" when they simply are not normally gendered humans is the right approach. I don't believe masking or avoiding reality is ever a good thing, and we can easily push for equal rights and respect for all transsexuals, even if people reserve the word normal when it comes to gender for someone who is cisgendered. Edit: wow, I was not expecting this many responses, or for this to be something other people found interesting. I won't have time today to read everything!

There is a word for non-diabetics other than "healthy" or "normal" - it's "nondiabetic". "Cisgender" could just have easily been "nontransgender", except that the prefix 'cis' is equivalent to the prefixes 'nontrans'. Additionally, calling oneself normal, implies calling everyone else abnormal, which has negative connotations. Besides, there's a question of what "normal" means - it's not merely numerical superiority.

ELI5: How come some cheese spoil while others just "age"?

Several protective techniques permit aging: - Mixing in a lot of salt - Drying the cheese - Coating the whole cheese with wax - Encouraging a beneficial mold to grow, which fights off other molds and bacteria.

ELI5: Why can small businesses have the same name but I can't call my dildo shop Walmart?

Two small business have very small chance of interacting with each other and most likely offer different services that would clearly differentiate them in the publics eye. Walmart is a multinational corporation whose name carries a certain expectation in the public eye. When someone goes to a store called "Walmart" they expect, well, Walmart haha. Branding a store with Walmart on the name creates the expectation that the Walmart corporation is actively involved with that business. Under the law Walmart, or any business, is able to prevent other stores from latching on to their name.

[Cowboys and Aliens] Why do the aliens want gold?

Gold is a useful element. It is a great conductor of electricity, though ironically it makes a poor superconductor, which an advanced species would require. However gold can also be used as part of an alloy, in materials and applications we can't fathom yet. While gold may be able to be mined from asteroids, perhaps it's exposure to cosmic radiation makes it unviable for their purpose. Earth's magnetic fields protect our gold deposits, and makes it desireable to mine.

How does a lazy eye affect vision?

Can somebody with a severe lazy eye actually see out of that eye? Are they constantly looking in two places at once, or is it just the healthy eye that can see? If they are looking in two places, how does that affect their visual field?

If you are referring to strabismus (as stuthulhu explained) combined with amblyopia, it directly impacts the perception of depth of field. Since the images from both eyes fuse thanks to the brain, and thus create "3D", the misalignment of one eye, and/or the fact that the brain takes only one eye into account upsets this balance. In Amblyopia, the subject would see perfectly fine, but miss the "third dimension", as in depth. There are a lot of variations within that. For example, if the person developed amblyopia in their first year, the brain effectively rewires itself to cope, and the person would have a sense of depth thanks to "motion parallax", or simply the motion of objects around him/her. (ex: "the ball gets bigger, so it must get closer") Another help in perceiving depth are shadows ("the darker the well, the deeper"), or simply the illusion of perspective ("the railroad tracks intersect far away") but all that is usually unconscious. As a matter of fact, a person may suffer from amblyopia and be completely oblivious to the fact that they lack the sense of depth. They may just feel they are "a little slow" in dodge-ball practice, or feel that cars are more unpredictable when they are driving. People who have lost an eye, or loose eyesight in one eye, or develop amblyopia later on are much more severely impaired as they may loose the complete field of vision for that eye, combined with the fact that they know what they are missing, and also the fact that the brain now needs to adapt to this new situation, which is uneasy.. Also, one can't assume that the amblyopic eye is "weaker" than the other, the brain, generally speaking, ignores the amblyopic eye, to concentrate on the signal sent by the other one. We are not quite sure why that is (is it that the eye is malformed? is it a "troubleshooting" problem in the neurons?). Generally, again, since the amblyopic eye hasn't had a lot of chance to "exercise", it tends to be weaker, but it may not have been the case at birth, or when the amblyopia was first detected. In some cases, the amblyopic eye is stronger than its counterpart, it simply remains latent, and can only work to its full extent when the other eye gets tired, or is covered up (which is why you may have seen amblyopic people wear patches, or use blurring drops). You also mentioned double vision, which can happen for various reasons: both eyes are taken into account by the brain but they are not aligned (this is not amblyopia generally, but "just" strabismus). An Amblyopic person can have double vision if their stronger eye gets weaker (when they are tired for example), in which case the other, amblyopic eye is "put on the line", therefore, the person will see double, but also may perceive both image with different strengths (one image clearer than the other). Double vision can also happen after an accident, if the brain has been affected and hasn't rewired properly. It is somewhat distressing to the person, and in most cases irreversible, but more people than you would suspect live with double vision. In fact, one can even have alternative vision (one eye for a while, then the other for a while)! In any case, it's never "lazy" :) EDIT: added some clarifications, + some formatting.

ELI5: Why do language learning apps make you play the guessing game instead of teaching you?

Is there some sort of science behind them doing it this way that allows you to learn faster?? I dont understand how you learn from guessing? Treat me like I'm 5, please.

Success and failure are good learning tools - this is the core idea behind "test and retest" as a way of learning. You're not "guessing", you're failing to get the right answer which you won't like and you'll then encouraged to remember and get it right the next time. But...mostly this is born from the recent idea of "gamification" - it's trying to created games as a way of learning to keep you engaged and to keep you "playing" because being in a "play" mindset is known to be good for learning. If it annoys it it's probably not working well for you!

ELI5: Where do Space Stations get their oxygen from?

Where do Space Stations like the iss get the oxygen for their workers from? Flying it all in from earth?

The primary source of oxygen is water electrolysis, followed by O2 in a pressurized storage tank. The process of electrolysis uses electricity from the ISS solar panels to split water into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas.

CMV: “Trust the science” ignores that science is not always a perfectly followed process in the real world and may even be dangerous

(This is semi-related to COVID as this argument comes up a lot but I’ve also seen this come up in responses to people that question climate change, evolution, etc). I understand the trusting of experts as more of a metric of *probability* and a crutch for the inevitable fact that most people will have either a lack of time, energy, capability, or interest for doing their own research on a topic, so I’m not criticizing that. And in the end, it is more likely that people who have spent years studying a certain subject are going to, for the most part, have more accurate knowledge (at least the knowledge available at the time) than a layperson. What I am criticizing, though, is extending this mindset to having total and complete blind faith in science (or really any kind of expertise, though I’m kind of trying to limit it to science for now because I’ve seen it the most recently), and ridiculing/lambasting people who are not in the field for questioning it. Aside from the fact that conclusions previously made can change with new evidence, there are also many cases in which scientific studies can be prone to bias, monetary influence (one example that comes to mind is studies connected to the tobacco industry that were actively misleading in the conclusions they came to about the effects of smoking, secondhand smoke, etc), just plain missing a potentially important factor, etc. I believe there is also a tendency for scientific studies to largely be focused on testing new hypotheses and not on looking to see if old ones can be disproved, but I don’t remember much on that so I’m not too sure about that one. On a semi-related note, there have also been examples of medical procedures touted as being safe, or that have been approved by government agencies, but it turns out there were loopholes in the approval process that were taken advantage of, and it turns out later they were actually causing a host of medical issues for many people, after years of connecting the dots, sometimes with the issue not even being acknowledged until multiple people connected online and they all had the shared experience of having medical issues after that procedure. (I’m sorry this is so vague, the main one I think of is a chrome-based leg or hip implant I believe that was causing people neurological issues, the source for this and a few others was The Bleeding Edge documentary on Netflix - perhaps someone in the comments will tell me that was all hooey though and that I’m a bumbling idiot for believing a word of it LOL) Now, I don’t think it’s reasonable to extrapolate instances in which experts and “trusted institutions” betrayed trust or messed up to mean they will mess up in ALL situations, or that a specific situation must be iffy and unworth trusting - for example, with the COVID vaccines. People worry about the newness of it, and in some of the procedures/medical devices in the documentary, the newness of it did mean that people who got in on it on the initial release of it were at more of a disadvantage since there wasn’t as much information showing the dangers of it - but medical devices and vaccines could also be relevantly different where the “newness” of it is not really that impactful on how much it can be trusted. Ideally, the trustworthiness of something should be decided on the details of that specific thing and it’s specific traits - but again, that becomes a problem when people aren’t knowledgeable and when the institutions that provide information have themselves become harder to trust. All in all, too, trusting any authority with a large amount of influence over your life completely is just a dangerous game to play. It may turn out well often, but for some, they could put themselves in the hands of someone corrupt, inept, or just become subject to a field that is still imperfect or always in development, and a set of people who believe that because they have specialized knowledge/training that nobody outside their field could ever have a relevant question, when really they are just as human and imperfect in their knowledge as the rest of us and could be blinded by their own perception of expertise. Not saying all people in scientific fields are like this, or saying anything about its frequency, I’m just saying it could HAPPEN. All in all, I get using expertise as a crutch, but not as dogmatic truth, because expertise is usually not perfect. It’s also possible that some of this is an issue of semantics/people not arguing their position very well or not wanting to put in the effort of explaining a specific scientific position all the time - I might understand that more as just a blip, and not hold anything against that as much, I don’t know. I’m just taking issue against the instances I have seen where the people saying that do genuinely believe that questioning science/expertise to any degree is something only an idiot or contrarian would do. (As another note, I know some of this got more general than the original title, and there may be some things that were vague, if needed I can clarify some things to express my views better or more specifically. Apologies for not being the most organized communicator, I

The alternative to trusting science is trusting unfounded claims. Which isnmroe dangerous than science. Yes, science is evolving and it is not perfect and it may never be perfect. But it still represents the highest extent of human understanding so far.

I believe American society is wrong to think that people are ruining their image by drinking and partying. CMV

When people judge other peoples' characters, it's common in America (or maybe just the Bible Belt, but this happens outside of Christianity as well) for someone to think less of another because they drink to get drunk or party hard. My views are shaped by my experiences in college (still in college, 22 y/o, and I haven't been affected by this issue in any serious way): In particular, there's a lot of pressure to remove party pics from your social media profiles. Businesses think less of those who show that they drink. There's also a lot of underage drinking going on in college, and a decent amount of students get fake ID's to get away with it. Public figures who are still in university (like a famous football player) get flack for making it known that they party. My point being, why should anyone care? If you take every person who's ever been in college and drank underage, done something stupid at a party, or gotten a fake ID, and fire them from their jobs or prevent them from promotion or throw them in jail for faking an ID; a lot of great, talented, and useful people in society would be taken down in the process. Nearly half the population in college right now would drop, too. To be clear: if we threw peoples' personal party/drinking lives into the public realm (in America), a great deal of them would receive a lot of flak for it. This, to me, is wrong because there are wonderful people who drink and party, so it's obvious that drinking and partying does not mean someone is a bad person. My opinion excludes those who drink while driving (which is terrible), or do horribly violent things while drunk (things that reshape a person's life for the noticeably worse; bar fights aren't always horribly violent in this respect--though they can be), but **does not** exclude people who made poor life decisions and ended up pregnant, charged with an MIP/other underage drinking charge, people who provide to minors, or people who end up in a hospital. Once again, the situations I mentioned after the bolded text are extremes to drinking that I don't feel should be judged too harshly by society (too harshly meaning that someone would lose a job or a promotion over it even if they qualified for the job or the promotion otherwise). These are not the situations I wish to discuss at first. I wish to discuss my point that "there are wonderful people who drink and party, so it's obvious that drinking and partying does not mean someone is a bad person." CMV

When you are hiring someone you are making a huge risk and investment in someone. You want to make the best and least risky choice you can. While plenty of people who drink and party are good and responsible people if you were to separate people into two groups, those who party and those who do not, you would find that more of the latter group are good workers. It's all about the odds. When hiring someone you take the people who have the best odds of being a good worker and those happen to be people who don't party. Or at least don't party so much that they have no problem with drunk photos of them on Facebook.

ELI5: Why do businesses build skyscrapers in cities when it would be much cheaper to build their offices further out where land is cheaper?

I understand that in some places, space really is a limitation, but where in live in Perth, Australia for instance, it makes no sense to me why all these giant buildings are grouped together when it would be much more cost efficient to build wider, shorter buildings in cheaper areas.

There are a lot of advantages to having an office in a central downtown area like this. 1) Free advertising 2) Good public transit/ease of access for employees 3) You can rent out unused floors and are likely to fill them as the space is in higher demand 4) Skyscrapers can be more efficient/more compact than wider, shorter buildings 5) It acts a "status" symbol for the company in a sort of industry dick measuring contest EDIT: Formatting

If you reverse the Hubble telescope to be a microscope, how small could you see?

I assume there would be focusing issues and whatnot. That said, if all necessary adjustments where made, what would you see? What could you see if you sat there looking for 1 million years?

With a telescope, you can see at higher resolution just by making the telescope bigger. With a microscope though, you can't resolve below about half a wavelength (about 200 nm for visible light) no matter how good your optics are. There are some tricks to get below that, for example by chemically attaching localized light sources to the sample.

ELI5 How did planes in the 1940’s know their altitude?

They didn’t have a sonar or something that would have helped them determine their altitude, right?

The easiest way to measure altitude is by measuring the air pressure. The higher you go the lower the pressure. It is a bit more complex then that. Moving air creates different presures over the hull then stationary air so you need a good place to measure the pressure at or compensate for it. Weather also affects the pressure so you need to calibrate for this, especially during landing. But in general a good barometer is the best way to measure altitude and is still used on airplanes today.

ELI5:Why the English language changes around the World.

Dropping the "U" from colour as an example. Substituting a "Z" for an "S". Reversing the "E" and "R" in certain words. For example litre an liter. Why did these changes occur in various different English speaking countries?

Most of these are just American/British English differences. There were no English dictionaries until the 19th century. By then, Americans had taken to spelling things a certain way and the British had their own opinion. By the time Oxford and Webster formalized the spellings with a dictionary, there were quite a number of differences. Popular attitudes in England at the time favored the more Frenchy spellings like colour, realise and litre. As for the rest of the world, it's largely about who was a greater influence. Former British colonies tend to be taught British English and places with greater American influence tend to be taught American English.

"Real" classes vs "fake" ones

In my short time programming, I've started separating in my head real classes from fake ones. This is probably sophomoric, but to me a real class is for something that makes sense in the classic OOP sense. A class describes a real thing. A noun. The classic example is "employee" or "car". In my work doing software for biology applications we often have "organ" "donor" "lab". All real things that make sense to look at in a classful way. But then there are "fake" classes. Situations where you're not really dealing with "things" or "objects" and it probably doesn't fit into the object oriented mindset but you do it because the class structure helps you somehow. Grouping similar methods, or class naming helps you do testing. Or in my case, you're writing libraries and it's easier if things are in classes for the sake of importing. Or if you're working with a language like Java where literally everything has to be a class. I'm a new python dev and I'm trying to write a client library to go with our api's. It's complicated because there's some stuff that just really doesn't fit an oop structure but I have to put it in a class. So far, for fake classes I've basically used static methods for everything. I'm trying to avoid making the user create an object (that has not semantic meaning) just to use a method in that class. Meanwhile doing non-static methods would be helpful for the sake of tracking tokens and stuff. My question is, should I stop worrying about making the user create dummy objects to use methods inside a class, or should I keep making static methods even if it is more complicated tracking certain attributes

I usually refer to these types of objects as "services". E.g. a class that handles tokens might be TokenService. These services are isolated units that can be tested and mocked, which is quite useful (as opposed to static methods).

(How) Can morals exist without religion?

I've recently left Christianity, and this is the main question I'm grappling with. Take what are, at least in my opinion, the two basic "moral" standards most people hold: the golden rule and justice/fairness. From a religious perspective, actions in line with these principles are objectively good because they please god. But without religion, are there any real grounds for saying that a just act is somehow better than an unjust one? Or that serving others is better than serving self? Couldn't these principles be reduced to modes of behavior people tend to like? I am familiar with plato's argument in the republic that justice is beneficial to the individual and society as a whole, but I don't really find it all that convincing (as grounds for cleaning that justice is "good" and injustice is "bad"), so I am more interested in theories that don't rely on self-benefit (Or perhaps something more convincing than plato).

Most philosophers believe that even if God exists, morality would not depend on God, because either morality is just what god wants, in which case it is arbitrary and so there is no reason to follow it, or God knows moral truth/the correct moral standard, so it exists external to him and we could presumably find it. The question of what this standard is though, and how it is justified, is the fundamental question of ethics, so there aren’t easy answers. Some philosophers appeal to intuition, or intuition refined by formulating principles by abstracting from (some of) our individual moral intuitions and then testing those same principles against (other) intuitions, ultimately bringing them into harmony (this is known as “reflective equilibrium”). Some (mostly Kantians) argue that morality is entailed by the standards of “practical reason”, or reasoning about our actions. Some try to analyze/reconstruct the logic of moral language or moral argumentation and develop moral theories based on that. There are many different theories.

ELI5: Why do nearsighted people need to wear glasses when using VR?

The screen in inches from one’s eyes, where their vision is ostensibly still good. Yet I see prescription lenses being sold to mount inside VR headsets, and general advice of “wear your contacts when using VR headsets. Please help me understand.

VR headsets are calibrated to project an image that is "correctly" focused for someone with "normal" vision. But this image is a trick; it has to appear to be farther away, which makes the person try to focus like that for realistic graphics. Otherwise, anyone who used VR for any extended period would get eye strain as if they were reading a book inches from their face. Someone with nearsightedness doesn't have that ability, so even though the screen is inches away, it's projecting an image that is like it's farther away which makes it blurry.

ELI5: why is glass transparent but other things are not? As in, why can you see through glass but not say a wall?

Light is not reduced to the light we, humans, can see. As a matter of fact X-rays, Ultraviolet, Infrared, Microwaves, Radio waves, Wifi are all different types of light and Visible light is just a portion of the whole spectrum. Transparency is not reduced to visible light. Your cells are transparent to X-rays but not your skeleton and that's how doctors can examine your bones. Walls are transparent to radio waves and wifi so that's why you can listen to radio without needing an antenna outside your home and connect to the wifi from any room of your house. It happens that glass is transparent to visible light so we can see through. Now, the reason why glass is transparent to visible light and walls are transparent to radio waves has to do with their atomic structure. It is kind of complicated for an Eli5 but it is a matter of interaction between atoms and light: if the atoms interact with a specific kind of light, it can't get through unscathed so it is not transparent to that particular kind of light. If there is no interaction then the light just goes through and the result is transparency.

AskScience AMA Series: We're Chris Joyce, a science correspondent for NPR, and Rebecca Davis, a senior producer with NPR's science desk. Ask us anything about plastic pollution!

We've been taking a [closer look at plastics and the plastic waste that's showing up all over the world](https://www.npr.org/series/684530164/the-plastic-tide). Global plastic production has grown to 420 million tons in 2015, and some plastics will last for centuries or even longer. NPR most recently published a story looking at [efforts in the Philippines to hold major brands accountable](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/01/15/683734379/an-island-crusader-takes-on-the-big-brands-behind-plastic-waste) for the plastic waste from their products and [another story profiling two teenage sisters from Indonesia](https://www.npr.org/688168838) who've been campaigning to ban plastic bags. [Here we are](https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1088962656399253504) ready to go at 1 PM (ET, 17 UT)! Follow [Chris](https://twitter.com/christophjoyce) and [Rebecca](https://twitter.com/Rebec) or the [NPR Science desk](https://twitter.com/nprscience) on Twitter, and ask us anything!

What alternatives to plastics can be mass produced on the scale plastics are produced? Can plastics be reverted into a previous compound more suitable to ethical standards? And what strides are being made to clean up plastic pollution?

My employer has offered to pay for me to take a course to develop software skills. I’m leaning towards learning C++. Any advice as to which I should take?

I hope that the title isn’t too vague or the question isn’t too overasked (I promised I searched the sub history before posting). I’m in my first potential career job so I’ve never really had an opportunity like this. We primarily use C++, and my programming knowledge and education in general has been very informal (mostly self-taught) so refining foundational computer architecture skills would be valuable too. Do you all have any recommendations for an online course that I could really get a lot out of? Cost is relevant of course, but I’m not on a super tight budget. Thanks!

What's the end game? What is your employer looking to gain? Does he want web app? firmware for hardware? websites? data analysis? The answers to these questions should give you an idea of which languages you should consider.

ELI5: What causes trees to grow rings and how are they exactly a year old?

There's a lot of good answers here, but the simple ELI5 answer is that the color of growth in the tree depends on how fast it is growing. In the winter, trees grow slowly, which creates the dark part of the ring. In the summer, trees grow more quickly which creates the light part of the ring. Because of this pattern, each ring marks the passing of the seasons, and thus a year.

ELI5: why can't we produce synthetic gasoline ?

We are able to make complex molecules in labs, so what's the reason for this ? Edit : I know it wouldn't be a leap toward ecology, just wondering if it has been done and how. There is surely a powerful lobby which could benefit from such a technology.

In addition to the cost involved, it's important to remember that gasoline is a molecule that can be burned to release energy. In order to create that molecule you have to put an equal amount of energy into it. That energy is stored in the form of chemical bonds. So burning the fuel breaks up the bonds and releases energy. But to create the fuel, you would have to put those bonds together, which means putting energy into it. If it's not biofuel then that energy would have to come from some other conventional source. Since our technology is not flawless, creating the conventional source of energy results in a net loss. Meaning that more energy is put into a power plant than comes out. So to create gasoline with a conventional power plant we would have net energy loss.

Why doesn't glue harden while in the bottle?

Type of glue here is essential for the explanation; but I'll take a few examples. 1. Superglue; cyanoacrylic, actually initiates bond with water molecules. So being in an air-tight container extends the life significantly. So without the water molecules to bond to the glue won't react and create the bond. (This is why the stuff sticks to fingers so fast. 2. Wood glue, elmers glue, and the like use PVA. -- it works by forming a chain (polymerization) when it dries. The solution is usually water, so while in the container the un-evaporated water keeps the chain reaction from happening. 3. Rubber Cement -- works like the PVA, its dissolved in a solvent such as acetone. This solvent evaporates and creates the polymerization bond. So once again, a sealed container keeps it from evaporating.

If grass turns brown when it dies, why do grass stains stay green?

Plant leaves are basically made up two types of photosynthetic pigments: chlorophylls and carotenoids. Chlorophylls gives green color while corotenoids gives brown. In young leaves, the no. of chlorophylls is dominant, so it is green. As the plant gets old, chlorophylls degenarate and carotenoids become dominant. So it gets brown. However a grass stain is literally dead, so the chlorophylls dont degenate, and remain as it is.

Married and Divorced individuals, can you CMV of this article about marriage that has been widely shared through social media?

As the title states, I see a lot of people sharing this article through various social media outlets. I personally feel a lot of this has to do with the "hive mind" and sugar coats things. To me this article says, "disregard your own feelings and concentrate only on your SO." Aren't you responsible for your own happiness? Isn't your SO just supposed to compliment your own happiness (and vice versa)? In short, I think this article ignores a lot of different variables that it takes to make a marriage work. I feel YOU have to be happy in the first place in order to make someone else happy. Just making someone smile and their life great can come at a sacrifice of your own happiness if you aren't careful. Article: http://sethadamsmith.com/2013/11/02/marriage-isnt-for-you/

I think there is a third option, which is focus on the team. Often when people say to only focus on the other person, this is really what they mean. Say there are 2 extremes - one will help you out but disadvantage your partner in some way, one will help your partner out, but disadvantage you in some way. Focusing on yourself 100% hurts your partner, and disadvantages the team as a whole. Focusing on your partner 100% hurts you, and disadvantages the team as a whole. The real option is to find a compromise that maybe doesn't help either of you out as much as the extremes would, but also doesn't hurt either one of you. When you go further with the team analogy, helping you is making your stats the best. Helping your partner is making their stats the best. Helping the team is doing what it takes to win the game, and not focusing on stats at all.

How is behaviour innate? How can animals replicate behaviour that they have never observed?

So, I know that some behaviour in animals is innate, I also understand why, but I don't understand how (except reflexes). Like, how do animals know mating rituals, or what to do when they see another animal, or how to hunt, or howl, etc.. And I know that there are instincts, but where do they come from? As in, what part of the brain, is it all subconscious? I'm sorry if I'm not explaining it well. I can't seem to find an answer on Google.

Those types of behaviors are similar to reflexes, they are “hard wired” and are initiated by an environmental cue. Often it is a series of behaviors that are initiated...an environmental cue initiated one behavior, and that behavior initiates a second behavior, and so on. Essentially, they are behavior patterns that do not need to be learned. Some texts that give a quick overview are Pierce and Cheney Behavior analysis and learning and Powell et al Learning and behavior.

What is super-symmetry?

I recently watched the documentary Particle Fever and this word was used often. Can someone explain to me what it is and why Super-symmetry would be supported by the Higgs Boson having a mass of 115 Gev. And since it has been found that that the Higgs Boson has a mass of 125 Gev what could that mean?

Basically it's the idea that for each particle with a given spin (electrons have a half, photons have one, etc), there is another particle with a spin that differs by one half. Some processes might occur differently if, for example, these particles were being created, but there hasn't been any evidence of that thus far in the LHC experiments.

Why is the Richter scale logarithmic?

I wasn't able to find a good explanation online.

This speaks to many such scales, but logarithmic scales benefit from allowing you to catalog similar events of very different magnitudes in a very compact way. There is the added bonus if there is exponential behavior in the data, logarithmic plotting gives you a linear result.

ELI5: why is it when your in a dark area and you stare into one space you begin to not be able to see?

Like staring off into space your eyes begin to go black

There are 2 types of light sensing cells in your eyes: rods and cones. Most cone cells are at the spot right at the back of your eye (called the fovea), where the light reflecting off something you're looking straight at would hit. They give better visual acuity and can see colours, however they only work if there's a lot of light hitting them. Rod are cells are much more spread out across the back of your eye. They can't see colours and don't give great visual acuity but they work at much lower light levels than cone cells. When you look directly at something on a dark environment, the small amount of light reflecting off whatever you're looking at hits the cone cells, however the light isn't strong enough to activate them and you can't see in that spot. If you look slightly off to the side of whatever you're looking at the light will hit the rod cells instead, and that small amount of light wil be enough to activate them and you'll be able to see.

ELI5: The difference between a director, producer, and executive producer

The director is responsible for managing the creative aspects of the film: the overall vision from all departments, and the performances of the actors. The producer is responsible for the logistical and financial aspects of the film: budgets, hiring, and scheduling, while ensuring each department & department head accomplishes their job on time, under budget, and to the level of quality expected. Producer can also be an honorary title, given to friends of the producers, people who are involved in getting the project started, or by talent who have contractual clauses that they (or their managers or someone they know) get producer credit. Associate Producer is an almost fully meaningless title in this area. Executive Producers are of a couple of types that serve one major purpose: They represent the financial interests of the film. In a small independent film, EP may be an honorary title given to major donors or investors. In larger films, EPs are assigned by the investing group or production company to represent their interest in seeing the film succeed and getting a return on their investment. In this subsection, the two major types are hands-on and hands-off producers. Hands off simply watch to make sure that things are going as planned and maybe communicating that to the investors or producing studio. Hands on either help the producer, or creatively consult with the director, helping to guide the film. Executive producers can also be the individual in charge of moving a project through a distribution company. Or, the individual who has picked up a film and is bringing it to a new or expanded territory. Overall, these are just general guidelines, and the actual work done by any individual on any film shoot can be varied.

Do high-impact journals discriminate against scientist from less prestigious universities?

I have heard many stories in which different scientist described how their previously "unpublishable" article have been miraculously transformed to publishable without changing single word in the text, just by adding a better known author (or author from prestigous institution). Furthermore, I have met several people who were convinced that the top journals like Nature or Science won`t even seriously consider manuscript submission if it has no author from "prestigious" university. Do you think there is some truth to this opinions or is it only something what people tell themselves to fell better when they do not succeed?

There's a lot of "trust me" in any manuscript publication. We need to trust that: 1. No deliberate fraud has been conducted 2. Experiments were designed well by someone who has an expert knowledge in all of the subject areas and techniques relevant to this work (understanding necessary controls, limitations, etc) 3. Interpretation of the data as presented in the manuscript is truly justified by the data, and by taking into consideration all relevant limitations, alternatives, etc Peer-review is supposed to catch these issues when they are noticed, but not all peer reviewers are capable of expert-level, confident review of all aspects of a paper they may be handling. Or, to rigorously check each detail would require far more time than they are willing or able to expend. Peer review is best at catching things when something raises a "red flag" to them - not because they spend hours poring over the materials and methods to ensure your buffers and computational parameters are correct (unless the result contingent on these is highly unexpected). So, putting a reputation on the line for a given set of work (authorship) where that reputation actually matters (recognized field expertise, prestigious institution, other ways the field "vouches" for that person as reliable)... well, either a little, or a lot, more faith is put into the manuscript's publish-ability. You assume that people in positions of acknowledged and visible expertise will only put their name on work that they think is good. You don't know jack about what Dr. Jones from Unknown Rural College might put his/her name on. There's also a noticeable trend towards high profile publications presenting the cumulative result of a significant financial and resource investment - lots of samples, access to rare samples, flashy technology, consortium-level number of people providing their expertise, etc. Less prestigious scholars at low prestige universities may only have a few thousand bucks and some summer undergrads at their disposal. There's no way their output could compare. There's also a lot of importance to relationships in academia. A scholar at a well-funded, high profile institution is more likely to have had the opportunity to meet editors of high profile publications, attended conferences with people who may be more willing to act as their peer-reviewers, chances to present their work and receive feedback from other international experts, etc. High profile papers often are aided by a pre-submission inquiry to the editor from the author ("would you be interested in this?"), and a known person (even a second-degree "known") may have more goodwill than a total stranger.

ELI5: Why are untested medical treatments not allowed to be used when no known treatments work and the patient is sure to die?

If a patient is suffering from an illness, all available treatments have failed, and death is imminent, why can't the patient consent to be treated with untested treatments or drugs that may save them? Are there laws against this, and if so, why?

Terminal patients are allowed to take part in clinical trials using experimental medication. The catch is that these trials need half the patients to be secretly given placebos so there is a control group to compare against. Some states have passed "right to try laws" which allow terminal patients to have access to placebo free experimental medication. The problem is that the lack of placebos makes it much harder for doctors to develop effective therapies, so these laws probably cause more harm in the long run.

How does salt "enhance the flavour" of other substances if the salty taste sensation is independent from other taste mechanisms?

many foods are coloidal suspensions. the coloid stability depends on the electric double layer, this is, charges around it than keep it from sticking to each other again. when you add salt to the system you are adding charges, this has the effect is reducing the double layer thickness because there's more charge available and the double layer is more efficient. this has the effect of reducing the volume and maximize the area of coloid because they don't tend to aggregate anymore. more area means more contact with your receptors, and so more flavor on the food.

[Warhammer 40k] What happens to the Chaos gods in a lighter universe?

Say I have the power to increase the amount of "good" in the 40k verse. How far would I have to go in order for the Chaos gods to manifest their good sides instead of their bad sides, and what would the galaxy look like? Alternatively, how hard would it to un-fuck the Warp bak into the realm of souls?

Well, you would need to make it so that all the good things was more than the bad things, which is hard since the good things they represent arent as powerful, easy to do or as lasting as the bad things. khorne is god of war, but also of honor and martial pride. Honor is hard to do and hard to define, and to find situations where you really have a chance to be honorble is very rare in your day to day life. martial pride could be extended to sports. but its hard to get everyone spend so much time at sports it would be enough martial pride to get to khorne. you would also need to make sure war and bloodshead stopped. And its much easier to just grab a club and go beat some dudes to death then it is to go around being honorble or spend your life perfecting sports. rage can also be a very lasting feeling, and its much more powerful than pride or honor. (is honor even a feeling?) Rage can make you go mad, honor just makes you do what you are bound to do, and pride mostly just leads to rage. Same with nurgle. the fear of death is greater than the family love, and a lot of things that die aint reborn. there is a lot of despair. basicly, you would need to eliminate disease, and despair. despair and fear of death are stronger feelings, it can be very very lasting and will most likely trimuph over love for family. with enough despair and fear, you wont care what happens to your family. With Tzeentch, there are more people scheming for power and change in the galaxy, than there are people with hope. you would need to root out corrupting, and give people a reason to hope again. you would need to make it so that dreams for a better tomorrow are more than dreams for personal power. and its not easy to keep people hoping. And for Slaanesh, well, its harder to keep people seeking for perfection in all things, its much more likely that they will just go of the rails into excess. Also, orgasms or extreme pain are the most powerful emotions we have, and the taste of very fine food or the beauty of spectacular art kinda pails in comparision with that. So, it would be really bloody hard to get rid of the chaos gods. A good place to start is to remove all war, disease, dispair and corruption, which would basicly mean to nuke the galaxy at this point

[Econ] Why don't all companies set money aside during booms to compensate for busts?

On the frontpage, someone mentioned a company that set aside money in booms so they don't fire people in busts. RBC is well-known in macroeconomics, so companies should expect a bust. Why don't they put money aside then? Seems in their interests, so they wont have to spend resources in rehiring after a bust ends

Hyman Minsky has a good explanation. Look for his paper on Financial Instability Hypothesis. The gist of it is during boom times euphoria takes hold and firms take on more debt to invest or speculate

What causes pruney fingers?

Whenever I go swimming, my fingers looks wrinkly after. What causes this? Is it pool water hypotonic, causing my fingers to absorb water or hypertonic, causing them to lose water. My scence teacher insists that the pool water is hypotonic and that my fingers take on water, but wouldn't that make them look bulbous and not shriveled?

Two portions of your skin, the epidermis and dermis, are tied down to one another in certain areas. As you spend a lot of time in the pool, your skin absorbs water and expands. However, since the two layers are connected, your skin has nowhere to go, so it wrinkles. Once you're out of the pool, the water in your skin eventually evaporates and it returns to normal.

CMV: Corporations almost never act in the interest of the public and would pursue extremely unethical and illegal practices to increase profits if not prevented from doing so by government regulations.

My view: Corporations almost never act in the interests of the public, and often inflict great damage upon society and the environment in order to maximize profits, and must be regulated in order to protect the public. For instance, Volkswagen emission-testing controversy. Their recent vehicles have been found to be fitted with a mechanism that is able to detect that the vehicle is being emission tested and switch the engine to an ultra low emission, high efficiency mode to pass the tests. When the vehicle was not being tested, the engine switched back to a higher performance but also far dirtier fuel burning configuration. This is a prime example of a company knowingly harming the environment for the purpose of increasing profit. There are countless other examples of other corporations participating in unethical and often harmful behaviors to increase profits and please the shareholders. Update: my view has been changed. Not all corporations are monolithic embodiments of evil and it was foolish for me to generalize in the manner that I did. However, I still firmly believe that government regulations are the only thing that keep corporations from using heinous business practices for profit. If not regulated, businesses will devolve into profit producing machines that have no regard for ethics or the environment.

I want to take an indirect approach to this one by clarifying something: what do you mean when you say "the public interest?" It seems like you've defined it very narrowly to mean protecting the environment. While environmental concerns can certainly present a conflict of interest between money-making and public good, they represent only a tiny fraction of the net effect a major corporation can have on the globe. What about economic growth? Employment? Lowering the cost of goods and services you take for granted? Corporations are major drivers of prosperity, and *with prosperity comes the luxury of caring about, say, the environment.* You'll notice that the slumdog neighborhoods of India don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about pollution when they don't have the certainty of clean water. TL;DR: Corporations do a lot of good things that you're not considering, and often those good things can give people the luxury of addressing some of the bad things you *are* considering. (And a quick sidebar, because it's a pet peeve of mine: it looks like you're using the word "corporation" as a synonym for "large company," which is inaccurate. A corporation is defined by it's government-granted liability shield.)

ELI5: If imaginary numbers like sqrt(-1) are in fact imaginary, how can they help solve actual Math problems?

all numbers are imaginary, they are concepts that exist only in your mind. Numbers become useful when they can describe real world objects. The number *i* is a natural way to describe a 1/4 rotation. If you do it twice, *i*^2 you have done a 180 degree rotation, and in math, turning around is like multiplying by -1, so in terms of rotations, *i*^2 = -1. And if you do 4 rotations of a 1/4 turn, you have spun all the way around and are back where you started. It is like you have done nothing at all, in math, that is like multiplying by 1, so in terms of rotations *i*^4 = 1. So all numbers are imaginary and live in your mind, and they become useful when they represent something real. When you relate imaginary numbers to rotations they become very useful and solve many real problems.

Is it worth it reading "old" computer science-related books?

Maybe some types of topics (eg. digital logic) are pretty much ageless but what about topics related to information security, artificial intelligence etc? I get the impression that knowledge in this field is always progressing and changing so quickly that reading a book from 10 years ago or something would only present outdated (and useless?) information. Does it ever matter? And if so, when should/shouldn't it matter? ​ Ps. I'm still pretty new to this field so apologies if this is a noob question.

The more mathematical and theoretical it is, the more relevant it remains. The more application-oriented it is, the less relevant. Discrete math, computability and complexity theory, information theory, mathematics of cryptography, numerical methods, etc haven't aged so much. ​ Application and implementation-related books age quickly. Even modern books need to be supplemented with current papers and survey articles.

CMV : Western cultures and values are superior

Some cultures are better than other cultures. That being said, I truly believe Western values are much superior than that of the East. The Greeks started democracy, and in the modern day era, the Americans and French spread those democratic ideals all over the world. Moreover, unlike in the certain other parts of the world, we guarantee our women rights. When a woman is raped, she receives justice, not the death penalty. We allow our women to demonstrate, stand up for themselves and do whatever they wish to do. Our gay citizens have the right to marry and adopt, something that no Eastern country (except South Africa; tho South Africa is still a part of "the West") is privileged to have. Gay people are not killed and imprisoned here, unlike the seventy countries where they are. People are allowed to follow whatever religion they want. People are allowed to talk crap about the ones in power without facing repercussions. It is the West that is leading the world - from industrialization to fighting against climate change. Sure, we may have had our problems, from slavery to colonization, but we have moved on from all those things. We have understood our mistakes, and are taking steps to ensure a much brighter future where all our citizens are equal and free.

So western cultures made "mistakes" like colonization, slavery, couple of world wars. Now they have learned from those mistakes so they are better. BUT Cultures who were oppressed by western countries and are just now beginning to stand up on their own, that are beginning to understand their mistakes and rectifying them are worse? I'd admit you're right if western countries never committed any of those atrocities ever; but they did. Can't just brush that aside.

[The Matrix] Where did the people of Zion (Zionese?) get the hovercraft fleet? [Spoilers]

I was just rewatching the Matrix a few days ago and saw the nameplate [here] (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hQ7V3jEodDM/UbjdtPxr-bI/AAAAAAAAICY/m-F0c0pv3PE/s1600/nebuchadnezzar.jpg) So the Nebuchadnezzar was built in 2069... but we know that we are in iteration 6 of the Matrix at this point... so has Zion been using ships that are several hundred years old? I don't care how well made the ships were, there is simply no way they could last that long. Do they find the wreckage of the ships and repair them or are they passed down from one iteration of Zion to the next? Also, this implies that Zion has the technical knowledge to effectively rebuild an entire hovercraft, but as stated in Reloaded they don't really understand the machines that clean the city's water, which seems like a very large technical gap. If someone could explain where the ships come from and whether or not they can build their own I'd really appreciate it.

There are a couple of factors at play. One, the inscription giving the date is on the ship's core, and also reads 'Mark III, no 11' which could indicate that the ship has be entirely refit either three or eleven times, and only the core is original equipment. Two, the residents of Zion don't know about the cycle of destruction, and thus don't really know what date it is. They could think they're salvaging from the machine war, and actually be picking up ships from the previous iteration of Zion. That could easily make the date on the plaque inaccurate. Best guess is they have the capability to assemble components, manufacture hulls and so forth, but may not understand the workings of higher tech bits like the core, or even maybe the pads. Likewise they'd clearly understand pipes and pumps, but the water system may have advanced reactors they do not understand.

How exactly does “losing” your voice work? What causes it/what is it?

The body’s response to damage includes inflammation and swelling. Your vocal cords are thin membranes and are very easily damaged by overuse (either too much or too vigorously- screaming a few times or talking loudly all day long). When they get damaged they swell, and the swelling causes them to become thicker and less flexible, meaning the don’t vibrate as well or make contact with each other correctly, and you’ve “lost your voice.” Illnesses can also cause them to swell.

Why are UHF TV antennas (almost) always loop antennas, vs. VHF antennas which are usually whip antennas?

The length of an antenna is related to the wavelength of the signal it is meant to receive, typically some fraction (1/2 or 1/4). UHF wavelengths are less than a meter, so loop antennas (antennae?) work fine. VHF wavelengths are longer, 1m - 10m, so they need longer antennas. There is math involved, so someone else will have to get into that.

Is not doing a bad thing good?

The original premise for the question was vegetarianism, i.e. if killing animals for the pleasure of eating them is "wrong" and seen as a "bad" thing, is abstaining a "good" thing or simply neutral? If people think that they're doing a good thing by not eating animals, why don't they think that they're doing a good thing by not killing everyone they come across, or not stealing when they go into a store? My first reaction is that perhaps the difference between a good or neutral *inaction* comes from a social moral differing from an objective moral (i.e. most people think that murdering a human is bad, while most people think that murdering farm animals is fine). However, the question is intentionally vague because I'm interested in different interpretations. Feel free to ignore the premise.

It probably helps if you have a distinction between "praiseworthy" and "non-praiseworthy" actions, in addition to "good" and "bad" actions. Sometimes we do good things that are praiseworthy (because they involve a sacrifice, or a great risk, for example) but sometimes we don't deserve praise for doing what we ought to do (like not killing random people that we meet). So, there are some actions we might want to say are good actions, without necessarily saying we should praise a person for doing them.

[40K] So our ship was blown off course in the Warp and we emerged in real space beyond the light of the Astronomican. How do we figure out where in the galaxy we are?

How do we determine our real space location and how do we get back to the Emperor's light?

You triangulate you location based on any known stars you can detect and make a short jump towards Terra. Keep triangulating and making short jumps until you see the Astronomicon or (more likely) die. Alternatively, give up and land on the nearest habitable planet. Or maybe forsake the imperium and embrace chaos.

Best books about logic?

I'm interested in critical thinking, skepticism (not philosophical), deductive reasoning (inductive and abductive too), constructing valid syllogisms, spotting fallacies and the like... Could anyone suggest some good books or resources?

Most people seemed to be recommending books on formal deductive logic. These recommendations fit some of your request, but they seem narrower in focus than what you're looking for. Here's a recommendation that might better fit what you're looking for. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Ram Neta have a good (and free) **online course called *Think Again* on Coursera**. It covers basic deductive arguments, inductive arguments, inference to the best explanation, fallacies, etc. A good companion book to this course is *Understanding Arguments* by Sinnott-Armstrong and Fogelin (you can pick up a used 7th or 8th edition for relatively cheap).

Is there anywhere that models predict will get nicer to live because of climate change?

Every time I read about the impacts of climate change, it's stories of ecological collapse, droughts, hurricanes, and so on. Is there anywhere that models predict the climate will get more moderate, the land more arable, and with more abundant fresh water? To put another way, what's the best place to move to minimize the negative impact on my family?

First off, "nicer to live" requires individual value judgements because not everyone is the same in what they like. By conventional metrics, most places are going to be losers in climate change but if the mean temperature was a bit warmer there will be some places which will generally be considered more pleasant places to live. Canada and Russian will be warmer but they will still have long dark winters. New York will get more like Miami and some people love Miami. It's known we are altering the climate but exact predictions of regional details are not as certain. It's not yet time to be homesteading new places based on predictions of climate 100 years in the future. Rainfall and precipitation are also important factors in quality-of-life. While rain is inconvenient for picnics it essential for agriculture. Climate change is going to alter rainfall patterns but it's not as predictable which places will get hotter and drier and which get hotter and wetter. Storminess is also expected to increase for most places in the mid-latitudes. Timing of rainfall is also important - does it all come in winter or is it spread out through the year? It is unfortunately those places which are already struggling (Africa, Southeast Asia) which are forecast to have some of the worst negative effects on agriculture.

Getting into research with low GPA

Hi all, I am in my final year of undergrad (Biomedical Sciences). I want to get some opportunity to volunteer or work in a lab to get some lab experience before I graduate. But my low GPA stops me from approaching professors and I know I won't be chosen since I am not one of those exceptional students that professors look for when choosing from applicants. If I want to describe myself then I would say although I am not so super smart but I am quiet hard working. I would learn but take my own time. During high school my grades were 90+ which I achieved only because I sacrificed my sleep, social life and all other entertainment. I am not one of those people who can balance study and social life and the reason is because I learn slow and I review concepts till I feel satisfied enough to confidently say that I know this stuff now. My initial years of undergrad were amazing in that I was pushing myself consistently. Although not an exceptional GPA (had 3.3/4) but I was still considered as "good student". But after the pandemic hit, my mental health suffered a lot (really a lot) and my GPA fell down considerably (currently around 2.9/4). I struggled to get out of bed and was totally directionless and lost. There was this guilt of not doing what I need to do and at the same time I didn't bother about just anything! I did find support later and now somewhat better in terms of mental health but now I have other health issues which keeps me away from giving my best. To be honest, before pandemic the lowest grade I got was C+ and that too in just one course. During pandemic, when I was not at my best, I had a couple of D's too. At present my GPA isn't at its best that I could go and talk to my professors regarding a research position. I know myself well and I know that those D's that I see on my transcript is not me. But I guess when professor will see my GPA and especially those D's I will be pushed out. Anyone here can give me suggestion on how can I approach professors, how do I convince them that I can do better and more importantly what will make them choose me over others despite a bad GPA for lab position???

I think most professors understand that GPA is not a good indicator of research aptitude. Many of them probably had less-than-stellar GPAs when they were undergrads. What they're looking in undergrads is not book-smarts. They want to see passion, hard-work, ability to listen, and an overall good lab citizen. So start emailing professors to see if you can join their lab. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

ELI5: Why induce labor in pregnant women past their due date instead of just letting the baby come on its own?

1. When the baby gets too big, it can require surgery to get it out. 2. You can make less of what the baby needs. 3. What the baby is using to live (placenta) can begin to fail. 4. Insurance reasons: Since is is now standard practice to induce if you are a bit late, any complications arising when they deviate from that norm leave doctors a target for law suits. 5. Business reasons: The doctor only takes on so many pregnant women at a time, with the assumption that most will deliver by their due date. It messes with the practice's schedule to have a bunch of ladies going late. This is not going to a primary reason, but if keeping the woman on her schedule can be justified medically, it is certainly a business perk as well. 6. Pregnancy is hard on the mother's body, so if she is having any significant health effects (high blood pressure, sugar level problems, etc), it might be safer for her to deliver sooner. I think it is important to mention that there are significant risks to inducing as well.

[Sins of a Solar Empire]What wiped out the Vasari empire? What was chasing them?

Two hints: - The sole Vasari warship that returned from their initial campaign against the foe had its crew "driven mad" by fear of what they encountered. Not merely despairing or terrified, but insane. - The Vasari are by far the most advanced in Phase Space technology, including holding permanent portal-like stabilized nodes open for their ships to use. Conclusion: *Something* came in from phase space, perhaps attracted by the stabilized nodes the Vasari created. *Something* so alien to even the Vasari, perhaps even to reality itself, that it just broke whoever perceived it. They never even had a chance to fight - they were lost as soon as they saw it.

What are the problems of Stoicism?

Classical Stoicism held that Nature was ultimately good, and that all actions in accordance with nature would bring about the good. Marcus Aurelius asserts in Book 2 of Meditations that “nothing natural is evil.” Stoicism then runs into the same trap as some religions that put faith in an omnipotent and benevolent deity - how do you explain horrible events? Alasdair MacIntyre summarizes the Nature problem in Stoicism quite succinctly: “Nature is conceived of as an actively benevolent agent; nature is a legislator for our good” (After Virtue 217).

CMV: languages that use a Latin-script alphabet should move towards eliminating accent marks.

My reasoning: I have some level of proficiency in five languages, using three alphabets between them. I have recently gotten more into language learning and am studying four more, all of which use Latin script (the alphabet used by Romance, Germanic, and Celtic languages among others). In doing so and using my phone for learning programs, I have realized just what a pain accent marks are - slowing everything down and not adding much to comprehension. Words are faster to type without accent marks, and text looks neater. To a fluent speaker, their exclusion should present no impediment to comprehension. The concerns: I am aware that there may be a few Latin script languages (Vietnamese comes to mind) that are so reliant on accent marks that losing them would seriously impede communication. These may be excluded. Further, I am aware that demo in accent marks makes pronunciation more ambiguous and may make the language more difficult for children or new learners. I have a proposed solution: Hebrew normally excludes vowels (a more important textual feature than accent marks) from professional/adult writing, including them only for children or new learners. There might therefore be, say, learners' French which includes ç,é,è,ï,ô, etc and professional French which excludes them.

I would counter that accent marks actually provide for less ambiguity, more possible phonemes, stress marking and ease in differentiation of homophones, while at the same time aiding the reader in inferring the correct pronunciation or meaning. Accent marks have a wide variety of uses that are ultimately beneficial. In many languages with more-or-less regular rules on stress placement, such as Spanish, accent marks can differentiate words, such as "esta" (this) vs "está" (he is); the former has stress placed on the first syllable, whereas the latter has it on the second. In Spanish, stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable when the word ends in a vowel, n or s, and on the last syllable otherwise. "Está" violates this and needs to be marked accordingly. Similarly, accents also allow for differentiation of interrogative and relative pronouns, cf. "¿quién?" (who?) vs "quien" (who). In other instances, they simply aid comprehension in terms homophones, such as "si" (if) and "sí" (yes). Even more, an accent mark can hold stress on a specific syllable for inflection purposes: the addition of "me" to "mira" in order to form a command would push stress one syllable over, but by writing "mírame," we're able to preserve the proper stress without ambiguity. In other languages, accent marks change the pronunciation of a vowel without resorting to using additional letters that complicate things. In French, the circumflex opens the vowel so that "hôpital" differentiates from "bonne." The "ô" signifies /o/, where as "o" in this case is "/ɔ̜/" in IPA terms. We can also look at accent marks as providing an avenue for more vowel pronunciations without the need to either guess or come up with convoluted spellings to achieve them. English has roughly 12 vowels depending on the dialect spoken with an additional eight diphthongs, but there are only five vowels and no accentuation possibilities. In comparison, Portuguese has around 16 vowels, but is much easier to deduce due to five of them being marked nasals with a tilde and the use of the acute accent and circumflex for specific sounds. Even more, Portuguese has a huge volume of diphthongs and triphthongs, but comprehension is easier since accented vowels provide clues on how to differentiate them.